Author: The Camford Clinic

New Clinic Location

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We are enormously proud to have been asked to join the team at the The Centre for Complementary Health, in Petersfield. A long established and well respected centre, they offer a huge range of therapies that will help support you, no matter what your presentation.

The Centre of Complementary Medicine

Practicing on Friday afternoons, the receptionists will be happy to take your call and book you in, whether with us or with any of the other fantastic people who support you.

This of course means that the Alton hours are reverting back to Mondays and Thursdays, with extended opening on Monday afternoons.

New discount appointment offered

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Whether you are a coppicer, hedgelayer, farmer, arborist, blacksmith, agricultural worker or rural craftsperson, you need your body to work to be able to earn.

But wonderful though the countryside is, the one thing it doesn’t offer you is a regular, white collar income. And so we are too often left waiting for the NHS physiotherapists and GPs to be able to see us, amidst overburdened and understaffed systems.

So we offer a rural workers discount. Book the slot, tell us your craft, and we will offer you treatment to get you back out doing the vital work to keep earning and the land living.

On being a god

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So you want the body of a god. Pick your pantheon. Greek, Roman, Norse. All images are interpreted by artists and storytellers, so what you’re actually wanting is the body that a painter, sculpter or mosaicist created to symbolise their desires. I wanted the body of a god and got Dionysis.

Anyway, god, or goddess, it is.

First, to be like a god, live like one. Perhaps without the destruction and disinterest in the humans, but in other ways, train, sleep, eat like a goddess.

The norse gods would have had fish, grains, meat, washing it down with beer (mead is for celebrations). The greek or romans? Fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, olives, breads, cheeses. What you put in, is what you get out and eventually the body composition will follow the diet.

The one thing none of the diets would had would have been confectionary (other than sweet cakes, ambrosia and dried fruits), and processed foods.

As for training, for the greeks, lots of running, throwing, lifting (think olympic disciplines). The norse, heavier lifts, walking, hunting and rowing. They created their gods from what they knew.

To be like a god, first live like one.

What has any of this got to do with a sports injury clinic?

Firstly, I firmly believe that we forget the basics to follow the latest trend or fad. Secondly, we are what we consume. Thirdly, even the gods needed help and support sometimes and having an expert at your side when you go on the journey is a good thing.

We can offer nutritional reviews, training and planning support and treatment for those injuries sustained in the cause of achieving your goals.

On: Finding the one thing

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Sometimes it takes only one thing to start the rock rolling, the pebble that is stopping the landslide of success.

Sometimes, once you find that one thing, everything else falls into place and it becomes brighter, easier, smoother.

However, finding that one thing is very difficult, as it is different for person, goal, and phase of life.

And sometimes, it doesn’t matter what the thing is, as starting anything can help.

Maybe you want to lose weight for health reasons (there aren’t really any other valid ones). Maybe you feel you need to improve your fitness (there could be a couple of reasons here), perhaps you feel stuck in a relationship (a multitude of reasons in there), or you’re at a fork in the road with regards to career.

Lets take health (we are a health organisation after all) and weight management. There is ostensibly a simple recipe for this. You want to lose weight, burn more calories than you consume, you want to gain wait, eat more. Now, lets take into consideration motivation, working and life paatterns, underlying health status, stress, prior exercise history, gender, nutritional history and current nutritional status and see how we go? Which one thing is going to unlock the magic box of slimmer?

For most people wanting to lose weight, it will simply being aware of what they eat and when. That awareness helps them tune their consumption. For others, who have a reasonably good grasp on it, moving a bit more frequently and with higher intensity could be the key. A more complex case might be the older person with underlying health conditions, who will need more close monitoring, motivation and coaching to ensure they maintain both good nutrition and reduced risk.

To find your one thing, contact us for a consultation. We don’t just do manual therapies, we support weight management journeys, fitness plans, proactive healthcare discussions and personal accountability coaching.

Butterflies

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We’ve all heard of the butterfly effect? You haven’t? Fair enough. Its a thought experiment based on a Lorenz attractor to demonstrate the essentially chaotic and uncontrollable nature of reality.

Anyway. Butterfly effect. Small changes in the intial state, big outcomes a while later.

This is found pretty much everywhere we look, but rather than changes to a chaotic system, we can use it to understand that small improvements now can lead to big outcomes in the future, provided we know which of the inputs to poke.

And which inputs of course depends on the goal in mind.

Weight loss? Muscle building? Endurance? Finance? Relationship?

Weight loss? Start with nutrition, then recovery, then exercise.

Muscle building? Same as before, but with more short interval resistance work.

Finance? Spend less. Reduce debt, add income.

Relationships? Listen more. Be present, be the person you’d want to be with.

Seriously, thats it.

None of this stuff takes a 3 hour podcast, a 12 week online course or a retreat with skydancing, funny mushooms and undyed robes.

Do the basics, be relentlessly consistent, see postive change.

Understanding the Vagus Nerve: Myths vs. Facts

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Stressed? Tired? Anxious? Run down? Digestive issues? Just not feeling the spark in the bedroom? Perhaps your Vagus Nerve needs resetting!

Or so many practitoners will try to persuade you. And of course they will share the secrets of their protocol for only 10 dollars and your email address.

Fact: The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve, and one of the only ones that leave the skull to travel around the body (Vagus – Wanderer – Vagrant). In the case of the vagus nerve, it heads down the neck, outside of the spinal cord, and acts as the parasympathetic highway, adding control to the heart, digestion, major solid organs and even your response to inflammation.

So yes, if you are experiencing a huge variety of issues, then the vagus nerve is likely to be involved, especially if there is a psychological component.

However. A vagus nerve reset isn’t a secret protocol or a mystic trick, and it may not make all those issues go away, especially if you haven’t actually made a start at dealing with the underlying issues leading to them.

Want to reset your vagus nerve? Do anything that relaxes you. Breathing exercises, meditation, gentle rythmic exercise. As long as its not excessively stimulating and you enjoy it, it’ll work.

Some research also shows that there is a relationship between heart rate variability and the vagus nerve, and that asymmetric breathing (short nasal in, long pursed lip breath out), can help this.

When you look at it closely, most of the online information regarding resetting the vagus nerve is actually long term lifestyle management, with a funny hat. Change your diet, control your stress, exercise and train in a manner that supports your health. And most importantly, breathe.

Simple, cheap, effective.

And of course, always consult an expert when considering such things, to make sure that you are solving the correct problem.

The Importance of Proper Breathing for Health and Wellness

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Have you ever felt your breath catch? An awe inspiring view, a new love across the room, a shock from unexpected news? Have you ever felt really short of breath, like there isn’t enough air in the room? Lots of things can make us feel short of breath, some exciting (the new love across the room, the view), some scary (the sound of unknown feet on a dark night, shocking news), exertion and even some diseases.

Therefore a caveat – if you think that your shortness of breath, particularly if linked with a new or persistant cough, could be of pathological origin, go and see your primary medical provider for assessment and treatment.

Breathing is the most fundamental process of life, something we have done since the moment we were born and the last thing we shall do. It is something we never notice until it becomes the only things we can do and is also, uniquely, one of the only autonomic actions that we can control.

Hold your breath. Just stop. No in, no out, just pause. If you are relaxing and have no known underlying issues, you should be able to last 20 – 30 seconds before the desire to breath kicks in. Physiologically, this desire is driven by the change in Carbon Dioxide, not the drop in Oxygen.

The ability to control your breathing, and your response to it, is a wonderful gift, that can help relieve headaches, reduce your perception of stress, control anxiety, increase athletic performance and even change your mood.

And, if your breathing is restricted mechanically, there is research based evidence that manual therapies can also help improve this, increasing your functional effective volume and respiratory mechanics, also helping with the above issues.

At the Clinic, we have spent years working with specialists and carrying out research ourselves on best ways to treat, unlock and improve breathing, from relaxation exercises to breath control systems, and manual therapies to address underlying function issues.

Book today online and talk to us to experience the benefits.

On: Suffering

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Suffering – to undergo pain or hardship.

Suffering is a subjective experience. Experiencing is objective. The difference is critical, and multifaceted, but is essentially context and control.

A person has a respiratory virus. They experience all the symptoms of congestion, headache, sneezing, fatigue. They only suffer with a cold if it makes them miserable as well. And if it does, thats allowed. Being ill is awful.

People in conflict zones undergo extraordinary hardships, as destruction and the potential for death surround them, with little opportunity to escape. And yet, so many of them are far more resilient than those of us who fall apart if Disney+ cancels season 2 of our favourite show. Somedays, especially with loss, grief and pain, I am sure they are suffering enormously.

The same goes for many other areas. People experience a life changing injury. They only suffer if they don’t get the support, medical care and rehabilitation that they need to allow them to return to independence and a fulfilling role in society, AND, they choose the path of misery and suffering, with the adjacent loss of control.

That choice is hard. Incredibly so. It is a choice they make every day. To suffer, or to experience, to live with or in spite of?

From having spent many years with these people, I admire them all, and especially the ones who choose to lean in to it.

From them, and from conversations with many of them, as well as reflections of my own, I offer the following thought.

It is.

Today it is hurting. Today is is raining, Today I have a cold. Today I have a back pain and didn’t sleep well, the children are playing up and I have worries about the council tax bill.

But.

I am still me, I am still a parent, I am still loved, I am still interested in art, science, reading, steam engines of the mid 20th Century, whatever forms part of your self identity.

It is, I have, not I am.

Labels are for shopping, or nasty little lists. Don’t take a label.

I am, it is.