“The right to determine what shall or shall not be done with one’s own body, and to be free from non-consensual medical treatment is a right deeply rooted in Canadian common law. The right underlines the doctrine of informed consent.
“With very limited exceptions (such emergency use or incapacity), every person’s body is considered inviolate and accordingly every competent adult has the right to be free from unwanted medical treatment.
“The fact that serious risks or consequences may result from a refusal of medical treatment does not vititate the right of medical self-determination.
“The doctrine of informed consent ensures the freedom of individuals to make choices about their medical care. It is the patient, not the physician (or others) who ultimately must decide if treatment–any treatment–is to be administered.” Justice Robbins of the Ontario Court of Appeal.
I deeply believe that the key to optimal health is taking full responsibility and accepting all personal power for one’s own health. This may involve doing research, educating oneself, or assembling a team of trusted health professionals, with you, the patient at the centre.
We have a busy and overloaded healthcare system and even well-meaning professionals can find themselves hurriedly having a conversation in which they are not properly informing patients of the risks and benefits, or alternatives to treatment that they are recommending. I have had patients hurriedly scheduling for surgeries they weren’t sure they wanted, or pressured into hysterectomies or long-term treatments whose risks they didn’t understand.
I have also had patients make perplexing choices in the name of their own care–choices I didn’t necessarily agree with, such as forgoing conventional cancer treatments or further testing or screening.
However, it is the duty of the healthcare provider to provide advice. And it is the right of every patient to accept or reject that advice.
In light of recent, disturbing events, I have started posting some facts on Canadian law and Informed Consent only to be met with surprise–many people are not aware of their rights to refuse medical treatment, to be informed of the risks, and to be allowed to make a choice free of pressure or coercion.
Despite it being deeply enshrined in Canadian law, many patients are not aware of their right to full bodily integrity, autonomy, and choice.
Since 1980, the Supreme Court of Canada made it the right of every patient to be given full informed consent before any medical procedure such as taking blood, giving an injection or vaccination, performing a physical examination, exposing the patient to radiation, and so on.
“The underlying principle is the right of a patient to decide what, if anything, should be done with his body.” Is quote from the famous Supreme Court case of Hopp v. Lepp.
Every health professional under the Regulated Health Professions Act, including naturopathic doctors has a duty to uphold informed consent. We are well versed in it. We are required to uphold it, document it, and maintain it with every patient we see.
Our naturopathic guidelines on consent state, “The ability to direct one’s own health care needs and treatment is vital to an individual’s personal dignity and autonomy. A key component of dignity and autonomy is choice. Regulated health professionals hold a position of trust and power with respect to their patients and can often exercise influence over a patient; however, decision-making power must always rest with the patient.”
In 1996 Ontario passed the Health Care Consent Act, a legal framework for documenting, communicating, establishing and maintaining informed consent in all healthcare settings.
Informed consent is required before all treatment can be administered. Treatment includes: “anything that is done for a therapeutic, preventive, palliative, diagnostic, cosmetic or other health-related purpose, and includes a course of treatment, plan of treatment or community treatment plan.”
Informed consent must be present in 4 key areas:
The consent must relate to the treatment.
The consent must be informed.
The consent must be given voluntarily, i.e.: made by the patient, and under no coercion, pressure, or duress.
The consent must not be obtained through misrepresentation or fraud.
In order to obtain your full informed consent, you must be given the following information:
The nature of the treatment.
The expected benefits of the treatment.
The material risks of the treatment, no matter how small, especially if one of the risks of side effects is death. The risks should not be minimized for the purpose of influencing your decision-making. The risks should be in relation to your health history. For example, if you suffer from cardiovascular disease, you should be made aware of the the risk of blood clots or myocarditis. It should also be disclosed if certain risks remain unknown.
The material side effects of the treatment. Again, these side effects should be explicitly stated, no matter how small, and if long-term side effects are unknown, that should be stated.
Alternative courses of action.
The likely consequences of not having the treatment. These consequences should not be exaggerated and must be related to the particular patient at hand. What is the actual risk of the patient not receiving the treatment?
Consent cannot be given in a state of duress or coercion. Healthcare providers must be aware that they hold a position of authority and may maintain a power imbalance. They must not misrepresent the benefits of the treatment, and they must disclose any conflict of interest.
Healthcare providers must ensure that patients are not acting under the pressures of someone else, such as an employer, government agency or family member, and are making this decision on their own.
Finally,
The Informed Consent Guide for Canadian Physicians states, “Patients must always be free to consent to or refuse treatment, and be free of any suggestion of duress or coercion. Consent obtained under any suggestion of compulsion either by the actions or words of the physician or others may be no consent at all and therefore may be successfully repudiated. In this context physicians must keep clearly in mind there may be circumstances when the initiative to consult a physician was not the patient’s but was rather that of a third party, a friend, an employer, or even a police officer.
“Under such circumstances, the physician may be well aware that the paitent is only very reluctantly following the course of action suggested or insisted upon by a third person. Then, physicians should be more than usually careful to assure themselves that patients are in full agreement with what has been suggested, that there has been no coercion and that the will of other persons has not been imposed on the patient”.
It is your body and it is your choice. You always have the right to do what’s best for you. True, empowered health cannot come from a place of coercion or pressure.
Know that you always have a choice–your doctor has a duty to inform you of your choice, as well as the information necessary for you to make the right choice for you, regardless of what is happening in the media or in politics.
I was sitting with my friend and her ex-partner. Their kids are soccer stars–one is headed towards a professional career and the younger one is not far behind.
My friends ex-partner, a fit soccer fan himself, lamented, “I’m getting old. I don’t recover like I used to. I’m not as fast as I used to be. I feel more sore after a game of soccer now in my 40s than when I was in my teens and 20s. Getting old sucks.”
“When you were younger you played soccer everyday,” my friend retorted. “Is it that you’re getting old or is that, as an adult, you have more obligations and responsibilities than you did when you were in your teens and yet expect yourself to be able to pick up the sport and play once a week as hard as when you were playing everyday?”
We blame old age on everything in our society.
I’m tired of “you’re getting older” being the main throwaway diagnosis of my friends, family, and patients’ sliding health and fitness. Kelly Slater is almost 50–he plans to keep surfing into his 70s. I’ll bet he can, too.
Coco is like 70 in dog years and climbs steep hills and races and chases and bites (with the 5 teeth he has left) like a puppy.
As adults, I think we need to take responsibility for our bodies and take our range of motion, flexibility and strength seriously if we’d like to retain the physical mobility of our youth. It’s not your age—it’s what your age means to your movement patterns that will dictate your injury susceptibility, your recovery, your progress in your sport of choice, and your overall fitness and health.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because I’ve been taking my surf training a bit more seriously this year.
Surfing is an incredibly difficult sport. Tiny increments in progression happen over years, not months. Going from a beginner (which I would classify myself as: an advanced beginner) to an intermediate surfer is a timeline of almost daily sessions for at least a couple of years.
I’ve been surfing for two years and still have massive leaps and bounds to go before I’d classify my skills as “intermediate”.
Because the lakes don’t offer as much consistency as the ocean, I figured I wasn’t going to make progress fast enough unless I started to do dry-land training, focusing on physical strength for paddling and speed pumping down the line, and flexibility and mobility to be able to put my body in the positions that the sport demands–this means core strength, glute strength, hip and ankle flexibility and upper body strength.
It also means balance and practicing upper and lower body coordination.
It means I need to practice certain movement patterns on dry land, and train on a surfskate. It means I need to make sure my body has the range of motion necessary to surf, and the joint and muscle health necessary to recover faster, and prevent injury. It’s not fun to get injured as an adult when you have a job to go to that pays the bills.
I dislocated my shoulder at age 20 while snowboarding and it affected my ability to study effectively at university. My shoulder still gives me trouble, particularly if I put it in “backstroke” position, internal rotation and overhead extension– I can feel it slide out, in danger of redislocating. I don’t want another injury in my 30s.
I’ve also been watching the Olympics and thinking of professional surfers like 19-year old Caroline Marks. Her prodigy-like talent comes from a combination of learning the sport early in order to instil proper motor patterns, a competitive spirit, familial encouragement, financial resources, body type (a strong lower body and lower centre of gravity), and amazing coaching.
According to William Finnegan it’s almost impossible to be “any good” at surfing if you start learning after the age of 14.
Damn.
However, learning new movements and teaching your body how to coordinate in new ways does wonders to stave off depression and dementia as well as keep your body strong and supple.
I find focusing on performance in a sport helps with my body image: I focus on how my body looks in its postures and positions while performing the sport vs. the shape of it in general.
I also find the dopamine hits and adrenaline highs are addictive and calming—If I go too long without surfing I feel a bit if ennui-like withdrawal.
I also find that surfing is an amazing way to connect me with a community, with nature, with the lakes and the ocean, and my breath and body.
And I find it satisfying to work towards goals.
As a kid I was fairly athletic but not particularly talented at any competitive sport. I did gymnastics for a second, and played soccer for a number of years. I was on the swim team in high school and taught and coached swimming myself. I am still a strong swimmer but was nothing more than an average racer.
I was on the triathlon team at Queen’s for a couple of years, and had a job as a snowboarding instructor throughout high school. I loved snowboarding during that time until going to school in a relative flat place and suffering an injury drastically reduced the amount of time I was able to spend on the hill.
I’ve been fascinated about the technical aspect of skills I’m interested in acquiring.
I love learning what the optimal stance is and how to position my body to mimic it. I’m interested in learning how to breathe right, which muscles need stretching and which ones need strengthening.
I love the video analyses and the tips from friends on how to improve. I enjoy the struggle and the frustration and the plateaus followed by random bursts of improvement that fill you with giddy excitement. That slam dunk, arms in the air feeling.
When taking a history, I always ask patients about their physical activity levels and their movement patterns.
Many are physically active in order to support their health: walking daily, going to the gym to lift weights or take exercise classes, doing yoga or pilates. But many will tell me that their activity comes mostly from playing sports–they play hockey or golf once a week.
And many of my surfing friends just surf.
That’s fine if you’re like my friend Steve who surfs or skateboards virtually everyday, but if you’re the type of athlete who only has the time or opportunity to engage in your sport once a week or less you’re most likely putting yourself at risk of injury without any dry-land functional training.
Functional movement helps our bodies stay optimally healthy and… well, functional. The functional movements include pushing, pulling, squatting, lunging, twisting, gait, and rotation. We need them to stay mobile and injury free. I read somewhere that most 50 year olds can’t stand in a lunge position.
When athletes neglect proper functional training, the risk of injury increases, leading to painful setbacks that can sideline them for weeks or even months. Whether it’s a torn ligament from an awkward landing or a stress fracture from improper movement patterns, injuries caused by a lack of strength and mobility can have serious consequences. In some cases, these injuries aren’t just personal misfortunes—they may be the result of faulty equipment, unsafe training environments, or even negligence on the part of a facility or coach. That’s where legal professionals, such as Gammill Law, step in to help injured athletes determine if they have grounds for a claim and seek the compensation needed for their recovery.
A well-handled personal injury case can mean the difference between struggling with medical bills and receiving the necessary financial support to heal properly. Athletes who suffer injuries due to someone else’s negligence—whether from poorly maintained training spaces or lack of proper safety measures—deserve legal advocacy to hold responsible parties accountable. Legal teams ensure that those injured aren’t left bearing the full financial burden alone, allowing them to focus on regaining their strength and getting back to the activities they love without unnecessary stress.
Injuries don’t just affect the body—they disrupt routines, careers, and the mental well-being of individuals who never saw them coming. Whether it’s a slip at a grocery store, a bicycle collision caused by a reckless driver, or a workplace injury due to unsafe conditions, the aftermath can be overwhelming and costly. George Pearson Law brings a focused, compassionate approach to handling injury cases, ensuring that victims are not left to navigate complicated legal systems alone. Their attention to detail and commitment to justice help make sure that every client’s story is heard, every injury documented, and every responsible party held accountable. Healing is hard enough without financial worries looming overhead—legal support should be a bridge to recovery, not another source of stress.
In addition to the immediate physical toll that injuries take on athletes, the mental and emotional strain can be just as debilitating. Athletes often face frustration, anxiety, and uncertainty about their future in the sport they love. That’s where expert legal representation becomes crucial. A skilled injury lawyer can help navigate the complex process of claiming compensation, ensuring that athletes are not only covered for their medical expenses but also compensated for the pain and suffering they’ve endured.
With experienced professionals like Knutson+Casey by their side, injured athletes can have peace of mind knowing that their case is being handled with the utmost care and diligence. Legal experts understand the unique needs of athletes and can provide tailored solutions for each situation. They help secure the financial support necessary to cover rehabilitation, lost wages, and even future medical costs that may arise from the injury.
I know that many people in their 30s can’t sit crosslegged on the floor, or squat. Our hip flexors are tight, our glutes are loose, and our ankles are immobile. We aren’t training our bodies for functional existence, like sitting on the floor and standing up out of a chair without using your hands.
It’s important to stretch daily to prevent muscle and joint injury. It’s important to keep certain muscles strong–like the upper body muscles for paddling. Our bodies weren’t meant to perform repetitive movements on demand after staying locked in a shed for weeks. They need to move regularly and need to stay tuned up to perform the sport of your choice, especially if you’re still interested in progressing at it.
Many sports are asymmetrical as well. This can leave us vulnerable to injury as certain flexors are tighter than their extensors, and so on, putting strain on joints.
Being able to move your body through space, not just linearly, in 2D, like in running or walking, but across all dimensions: front and back and side to side and twisting and jumping and crawling, is important for maintaining proprioception and body awareness.
Open hip flexors (can you do a squat? Can you sit cross-legged on the floor? What about Pigeon Pose?) are important for maintaining optimal back and digestive health.
The glutes are the most metabolically active muscles in the body and for most of us they just lie around flaccid all day as we sit in our chairs and work on our computers. This causes tightness and strain in other areas of the body such as the hip flexors, calves and hamstrings.
I noticed that my left calf was so tight it was impacting my ankle flexibility. I learned this through yoga–noticing that when I would try to get into skandasana (side lunge), my heel wasn’t able to touch the floor on the left side. This left ankle tightness is inevitably going to impact my surfing because my body cannot literally get into the posture necessary for certain maneuvers and therefore will limit my progress.
And so I’ve been focusing on more sport-specific dry land training for the sport of surfing–a challenging feat to take on as someone in her mid-30s who doesn’t live near an ocean–but also to maintain optimal health, body awareness, and functional movement.
Challenge you body and brain through finding a sport you love, or activities that you love that you’d like to get better at. Train for these activities, stretch daily and begin to explore your body in new ways: learn what muscles need loosening and what muscles need strengthening, Begin to expand the range of motion of your joints to prevent injury.
Strengthen your bone mass through applying repetitive stress to long bones (through walking, running, jumping and weight-lifting).
Explore fluidity of movement through swimming, dance, yoga, pilates, or other activities that require complex movements, coordination, grace, style, and flow.
Watch your body shape transform into something you are genuinely proud of: not so much because of what it looks like, but for what it is capable of, how it supports you, and what it can do.
Develop and hone your body awareness. Deepen your breath. Pay attention to pain and physical sensations, including the physiological sensations of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Body awareness can help to heal injury, process trauma, and engage in self-care. It can help with emotional regulation, and interpersonal relationships.
And as we build a stronger, more aware body, it’s important to remember that accidents and injuries can still happen, disrupting our progress and affecting our overall well-being. Whether it’s a slip, a fall, or a car accident, personal injury can significantly impact our ability to function and perform the activities we love.
When navigating the complexities of injury claims, having a compassionate and experienced guide is crucial. The Law Office of Stephen Spurgeon understands the intricacies of personal injury law and is dedicated to helping clients seek justice and secure the compensation needed to heal and move forward. Their commitment to providing personalized legal support ensures that you can focus on your recovery while they handle the legal complexities, giving you peace of mind during a challenging time.
With the right legal assistance, you can ensure that your path to physical and emotional recovery remains as smooth and supportive as possible.
And, most of all, stay active. Whatever you do, find joy in movement.
I talk about contrast showers for boosting immunity, lowering inflammation, mood, pain and weight loss.
Hello everyone, my name is Dr. Talia Marcheggiani, I’m a naturopathic doctor and today I’m going to talk about hot and cold contrast showers. As naturopathic doctors, one of our modalities is hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy comes from naturopathic medicine’s roots, using hot and cold water to make changes to circulation, hormonal functioning and immune functioning. I’m going to talk about some of the science behind hot and cold contrast showers.
This is something I recommend to my patients to increase their immune activation, decrease autoimmunity, improve mood and hormonal functioning, as well as increase circulation and there’s some evidence that it might help with weight loss as well.
So, firstly, things like exercise and hot and cold therapies induce a little bit of stress. There’s two kinds of stress: distress, which is sort of that chronic, cortisol-fuelled stress that a lot of people come in with, in a state of burnout that’s causing things like inflammation, and mental-emotional illness, and autoimmune issues, and dysbiosis, and then there’s something called eustress, which is more like exercise, cold therapy: short, small bursts of stress that actually up-regulate proteins and genes in our body to combat stress. These genes are involved in DNA repair, increase antioxidant synthesis, and the antioxidants that our body makes are far more powerful than the ones that you’re going to get from food or supplements.
So, by upregulating these genes, we can protect ourselves from cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and other chronic diseases. It’s really powerful stuff, this is called a “Hormetic” response, hormesis, where small stressors mount bigger responses by the body than is needed to deal with those stressors and overall we’re better off; there’s this net beneficial effect. This is one of the proposed mechanisms for some of the antioxidants or flavonoids in green leafy vegetables. It’s not that they provide us with antioxidants, it’s that they encourage our body to make antioxidants due to the small, toxic load that they present to us. And so there’s some evidence that getting short bursts, or longer bursts of cold, very cold, will increase a hormone called norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is involved in depression and mood. Norepinephrine is a catecholamine and it increases the sympathetic nervous system, which is that fight or flight nervous system. When boosted in small amounts, it can actually elevate mood and so a lot of anti-depressant medications also induce, or inhibit the reuptake of norepinephrine. So these are called SNRIs and they include things like Venlafaxine and Cymbalta. So there’s some evidence that norepinephrine increases 2-3 times after only 20 seconds of immersion in cold water. There’s a connection between norepinephrine lowering pain and inflammation and increasing metabolism and there’s some anecdotal evidence and one study, at least, was done to show that cold immersion therapy actually decreased symptoms of depression.
There’s also these things called hot and cold shock proteins, heat shock proteins and cold shock proteins. So, for example, one is called RBM3, which is a cold shock protein, and these proteins can actually help increase longevity and they can actually help decrease incidences of neurodegenerative diseases and neurodegeneration, so something like Alzeimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease, which can help us with health longevity, so staying healthier into our later years.
We know that inflammation is one of the drivers of the aging process. Probably the primary driver of the aging process, and one of the main factors in chronic, debilitating disease, and, especially in my focus, mental health, there’s more and more researching coming out that inflammation, low levels of inflammation in the brain, is the main cause of mental health conditions, such as depression, and anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD, ADHD. There’s these low levels of inflammation that contribute to the symptoms of low mood and by increasing norepinephrine, through small bursts of cold and increasing those cold shock proteins, we’re actually able to combat these mental health conditions. Norepinephrine decreases inflammation by decreasing a cytokine called TNF-a that is known to increase inflammation in the body and in the brain. TNF-a can cross the blood brain barrier and it can inhibit serotonin synthesis and it can actually also increase neuro-inflammation, causing symptoms of mental health disorders.
There’s some studies that cryotherapy, for rheumatoid arthritis actually decreased pain significantly. And there’s also some studies that being in cold water, that cold shock, can actually increase the immune system activation. It’s good to increase our immune system activation if our immune cells are behaving properly. If our immune cells are attacking ourselves, then we want to decrease the immune response. But having higher levels of lymphocytes, especially cytotoxic T lympthocytes that are involved in killing cancer cells, is a very positive thing and that’s been shown to increase in people that underwent cryotherapy, or really acute, short exposure to intense cold.
There’s also an ability to lose weight when exposed to cold, over the long term. There’s a man called Ray Cronise who lost over 80 lbs by just habitually exposing himself to mildly cold temperatures. And one of the mechanisms for this weight loss is through non-shivering thermogenesis, in which the cells in the mitochondria uncouple proteins that make energy and they dedicate all the stored energy in fat to making heat. Kind of like cutting your bike chain. So instead of biking, you’re not moving forward, but you’re generating energy and you’re generating heat. And so our body will do this when it’s slightly cold that it can increase heat. Our body is always striving to maintain constant temperature, between 1 or 2 degrees. This process is regulated by norepinephrine, which rises acutely as soon as we’re exposed to just a few seconds of cold. This can be 40-50 degree water. And then I already mentioned that short, cold exposure can increase the production of antioxidants. Our mitochondria are constantly creating reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species. This is just a product of normal cell metabolism. These become toxic, though and damage DNA if our body doesn’t also produce anti-oxidants to clear out those reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species. The cold induces a little bit of a stress that increases our metabolism that increases the reactive oxygen and nitrogen species in our mitochondria and therefore our body is incited to up-regulate the enzymes that create those powerful anti-oxidants that I talked about that are far more powerful than the ones that you can get from food: vegetables, fruits, vitamin C supplement. A couple of these enzymes are glutathione reductase and superoxide dismutase, which are very powerful to our cells.
There’s some evidence that hot and cold therapy can increase muscle mass, can increase muscular strength and aerobic endurance. So this is great for athletes post-workout to lower inflammation and improve muscle regensis. And then, it can also increase something called mitochondrial biogenesis, which is the production, or the replication of more mitochondria in the tissues, especially the muscle tissue. So our body will increase the mitochondria content, the mitochondrial mass, in muscle tissue under certain conditions. These conditions are mainly fasting, exercise, and hot and cold shock.
So, what I’ll recommend to my patients, somebody who’s suffering from low immunity, so they’re getting frequent colds and flus, or maybe autoimmunity, or maybe just general inflammation and pain, brain fog sluggishness adrenal fatigue, that kind of sluggish lethargy from depression. So it’s more the sluggish depression, I’ll recommend hot and cold showers.
So what you do is, in your shower, either during your shower, during your regular cleaning routine, or after your shower is done, and you’ve already washed your hair and everything, you’re going to turn the water on to a reasonably hot temperature, so not so hot that it’s scalding, and you’re going to leave that hot water on for 30 seconds to 1 minute. When that’s done, you’re going to turn the shower to as cold as you can tolerate. So with my patients I often coach them to start with a lukewarm temperature before going whole hog and doing cold. And this is just to coax the body into that stress response that we want, that short, quick stress response that’s going to do all those good things: up-regulate anti-oxidant production, increase norepinephrine, decrease inflammation, increase mitochondria synthesis, burn fat. So you’re going to try and make it as cold as possible, for 20 to 30 seconds, and then you’re going to cycle back and forth at least 5 to 10 times, always end on cold, and then, when you’re done, towel off and keep warm.
There’s some evidence that doing this before bed can actually increase REM sleep and help you sleep more soundly without waking up in the middle of the night. We all know that a good sound sleep is going to set the tone for the next day and your energy for the next day. And then there’s also some evidence that doing this in the morning can increase your energy and alertness throughout the day, so it’s almost like this same practice at different times of day impacts our circadian rhythms differently and can give us more of what we want: either more profound sleep or more daytime energy.
So, that was hot and cold showers, my name is Dr. Talia Marcheggiani and you can check out my website at taliand.com or contact me at connect@taliand.com . A lot of this research came from Dr. Rhonda Patrick at foundmyfitness.com .
When you go through an upsetting breakup with your boyfriend, the thing to do, apparently, is attend an Ecstatic Dancing workshop. The friend who invited me didn’t say much about it, except that it was, “a place to dance without being hit on.” Apparently the practice would cleanse my aura and allow me to vibrate with the rhythms of the universe. So, I thought, why the heck not.
The Facebook invite hilariously clarified the tone of the event with their tag: “No alcohol, no drugs, no talking. We dance barefoot.” I took a sip of my wine and clicked “Going”. I was sold.
I showed up wearing yoga clothes and a tunic I got from India so I would fit in. My friends and I were greeted by girls wearing headbands whose faces were frozen in an expression of ethereal ecstasy, as if they’d just heard white angels whisper in their ears. They cleansed our chakras with a sage smudging and offered us “elixirs” of green tea kombucha. I was in over my hippie head—it was exactly the kind of weird I needed.
We entered a church gym full of people wearing flowing clothing who were gaily unleashing their spirits to music. I became acutely aware of not knowing what to do with my hands. A girl there with wild, frizzy hair and a long sheer robe was twisting and turning like a branch in the wind. It was like she had no bones. She looked like a goddess. I remember thinking that, if I could dance like her, I would consider myself well on my way to spiritual integration.
Instead, my body seemed to be at the mercy of 29 years of awkward repression and self-resistance, most of which I carried in the form of muscle tension. However, I tried to overcome the trauma of grade 6 dances and let myself succumb to the barefoot madness. I let my body pulse to the music as best I could. I felt free.
There were a group of girls who obviously frequented these kinds of events, wearing what looked like thick elastic bands that wrapped around their torsos and legs. One of the girls in the group was built like a princess warrior. Her body was pure sinew and bones. She was doing something that looked like graceful backward cartwheels, her face a picture of calm focus. I wanted to be like her when my spirit grew up.
When the no talking rule was lifted, I approached her to find out her secret. I imagined it had something to do with the elastic bands she was wearing. Maybe they bore the secret of why she was so present in her physical body. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with the years of yoga practice she’d committed to). “It’s called the Body Braid,” She told me, when I asked what she was wearing. “It helps you maintain proper alignment. I wear it for an hour everyday and since getting it, it’s helped transform my body.”
While I wasn’t sure what her pre-braided body must have looked like, I wanted a piece of this alignment and freedom for myself. I wanted my body to transform! She looked like she was wrapped in a cushy elastic hug. Her shoulders were back and not curving inwards like mine tend to. I instinctively raised a hand to my left shoulder to massage out a constant knot I’d lugged around since my first week of medical school.
Alignment matters. Having a toned, healthy body requires our bones and muscles to be in the right place. If they’re not, which happens due to improper posture, repetitive movements, incorrect footwear and, of course, excessive sitting, we experience tightness, pain and an overall poor-looking physique. You’ve seen it before: slouched shoulders, a bend at the hips, neck craning forward—not very sexy. Alignment helps with lymphatic drainage and proper circulation. It helps with muscle toning. This braided yogi I was talking to was perfectly aligned. She looked like she was ready to pick up a spear and tear after a zebra through the savannah. I imagined her climbing trees, dancing freely under the stars and doing backflips on a whim. Standing next to her I felt doughy and slouchy in comparison. I didn’t like the feeling.
I wanted the Body Braid.
I found it on the internet for under $100. It was made in Canada and developed by a medical doctor. I immediately ordered one and a few weeks later it arrived. I figured it was cheaper than a series of massages.
The body braid is made of two intersecting elastic bands in black or white that are about 5 cm wide. The straps can be adjusted and are sized according to your height. An instructional video on their website shows you how to wrap the braid around your body with 4 wraps on each side, one under each arm, one around the hips, behind the knee and around the shin. The end of each wrap is secured under the feet like a stirrup.
Once I was finished wrapping myself in, I felt my shoulder press back, my thighs straighten and the arches of my feet lift.
I liked the buoyant, uplifting feeling. It was teaching my body how to be—I was hooked.
I had a date that night and seriously considered either cancelling or wearing the thing out to the bar. Both those options seemed far superior to separating myself from this magical feeling of elasticity and buoyancy. (I eventually did remove it to go on the date, but probably shouldn’t have bothered. Next time I know: always prioritize posture.)
Since buying it, I’ve worn it for yoga classes, exercise, going out for walks and sitting at the computer.
My postural goals are to align my shoulders and take some strain off of my lower back. I want to feel integrated and connected to my body. In the cerebral world we live in, our bodies are often simply viewed as tools to carry our skulls around. The Body Braid is helping to connect all the parts of me: physical, mental and emotional.
