We all deal with stress every day, and some days are worse than others. Stress can affect your mood, raise your blood pressure, cause headaches, sleeplessness and affect relationships with our loved ones and anyone we interact with, including the people we work with.

We can take our senses for granted but they once they are stimulated and aligned, they help centre you and let your stress drift away. From the moment you walk into your massage room at Oceana, your senses will awaken. Picture this…

Your eyes relax the moment you walk into the massage room, which is softly lit and painted in soothing earth tones. It sets the mood and you feel your energy respond and relax.

As you lie back and your skin rests against the soft sheets, you hear a Tibetan singing bowl him. Its ancient tones signal the beginning of your session and align your chakras, your energy centres. Sound is closely tied to our moods and for the rest of the session, the only sound you hear is relaxing non-lyrical music. You find your mind emptying of busy thoughts.

Scent is one of our strongest senses, as it processes everything from the pleasurable to the intense. During your Vancouver massage therapy session, your senses will awaken and evoke different responses from the array of essential oils we select just for you. While lavender is calming, orange is more stimulating and chamomile relaxes.

And last but not least, your skin and nerves and muscles will tingle and sing under the talented hands of Susan Polano. <Link to testimonials>. Ahh, sense-ational!

The three most common types of stress are work, relationship and financial stress. At Oceana Massage, we use more than 400 different types of essential oils to soothe a variety of stress-related symptoms, including anxiety, headaches and nausea.

Essential oils are used during massage to promote healing of the mind and body thanks to each of their distinct qualities and aromas.

When you come in for a Vancouver massage treatment, we’ll sit down do an intake session to determine your emotional and mental stress levels through a series of questions. Then we’ll know what kind of stress you’re having and the best essential oils that can help you feel better.

Essential oils are made up of different parts of plants, including flower petals, leaves and bark. Lavender is a grounding oil that brings your system to a neutral space. Bergamont eases external stress while chamomile helps with sleep issues and orange promotes happiness.

Come in for a Vancouver massage; we’ll use essential oils to soothe your stress, and help you relax and be a nicer person.

Cancer? Diabetes? Heart disease?

Those are certainly serious problems – but there’s another health crisis that’s being caused by the unprecedented stressbombarding us every single day and night

We’re sleeping less and worrying more.

It’s absolutely true.

Americans are so stressed-out…and all this stress is creating an epidemic of fatigue that’s sapping their energy, stamina, and optimism.

America’s other “energy crisis”

As a result, millions of adults are slogging through the day, feeling tired and worn-out — half-awake and chronically exhausted.

To give you an idea of how widespread this problem is, sales of caffeinated energy drinks will top $9 billion this year! This is a product category that didn’t even exist in 2002!

But caffeine just makes the problem worse!

That’s because the underlying problem is that our adrenal glands have hit “burnout” due to the relentless stress we’re under.

Consuming these energy drinks is like flogging an exhausted oarsman to make him row harder. “That’s the real danger,” according to Dr. Alan Pressman, “because this can cause a serious breakdown in the body’s protective immunes system. That’s the beginning of real health problems.”

See Dr. Pressman’s fascinating explanation here »

Other ways we’re coping:

Even more troubling are the unhealthy ways people are coping with this barrage of stress-induced fatigue.

They’re eating more to calm themselves (mostly fattening carbohydrate “comfort foods”) … drinking more alcohol and using recreational drugs … turning to tobacco for stress-relief … and gulping tranquilizers, painkillers, and sleeping pills in record numbers.

Of course, none of these can solve the “adrenal crisis” that’s at the heart of the problem.

A new natural solution that does…

“When the adrenal glands are burned-out, the only solution is a ‘re-charge,’” as Dr. Pressman says, “like when you car battery is too weak to start the engine.”

“Usually, the most effective remedy is a two-week vacation in the mountains or at the beach,” he continued. “But few people take the time for that – so I came up with a solution that’s the next best thing.”

You can do a lot, right now, to significantly decrease your cancer risk. Even the conservative American Cancer Society states that one-third of cancer deaths are linked to poor diet, physical inactivity, and carrying excess weight. So making the following healthy lifestyle changes can go a very long way toward ending the failure-streak and becoming one less statistic in this war against cancer:

1. Normalize your vitamin D levels with safe amounts of sun exposure. This works primarily by optimizing your vitamin D level. Ideally, monitor your vitamin D levels throughout the year.
2. Control your insulin levels by limiting your intake of processed foods and sugars/fructose as much as possible.
3. Get appropriate amounts of animal-based omega-3 fats.
4. Get appropriate exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
5. Eat according to your nutritional type. The potent anti-cancer effects of this principle are very much underappreciated. When we treat cancer patients in our clinic this is one of the most powerful anti-cancer strategies we have.
6. Have a tool to permanently erase the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for this purpose, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique.
7. Only 25 percent of people eat enough vegetables, so by all means eat as many vegetables as you are comfortable with. Ideally, they should be fresh and organic. Cruciferous vegetables in particular have been identified as having potent anti-cancer properties. Remember that carb nutritional types may need up to 300 percent more vegetables than protein nutritional types.
8. Maintain an ideal body weight.
9. Get enough high-quality sleep.
10. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.
11. Reduce your use of cell phones and other wireless technologies, and implement as many safety strategies as possible if/when you cannot avoid their use.
12. Boil, poach or steam your foods, rather than frying or charbroiling them.

On our summer vacations, we typically eat well, drink more water, sit in sauna-like heat of 30 or 40 degrees, swim in ocean water heat to bath-like temperatures, and take cold showers that couldn’t be cold enough just to cool down. These are all really good ways to detoxify naturally – but we can’t be on vacation all the time!

Here are six ways to detoxify at home:
Drink warm or hot water with lemon first thing in the morning, before anything else. This will wake up your body and the lemon gently flushes toxins out of your body. As an added bonus this helps keep your blood at an alkaline PH; an acidic body is more likely to get sick. Foot Pads - these pads have an adhesive backing that you stick to your feet. They encourage self-healing by promoting improved circulation of the blood and lymphatic system and absorb the excess toxins the body throws off. You can also stick these pads on any area of the body where you have pain or a rash, e.g. on the back, at the lungs for a cough, on the legs for itchiness.Hydrotherapy - Contrasting showers promotes detoxification and strengthens the immune system by increasing the white blood cells. Start with 3-5 minutes of hot water followed by less than a minute of cold water. Repeat at least once, finishing with cold.Salt Baths - soak in a tub to which you’ve added sea salt. Add one cup of sea salt to your bath and grab a book to read. Salts contain minerals and trace elements that are beneficial to our healthSkin Brushing - stimulates the lymphatic system and white blood cells migrate to the skin, as well as increasing blood circulation. Use gloves or natural bristle brushes, start with the feet and work your way up the body, always brushing towards the heart.Exercise with yoga, jumping rope or qi gong.
Here are three more ways to help your body detoxify outside the home.
Lymphatic Drainage Massage – the lymphatic system is responsible for cleansing soft tissue just under the skin. It’s a network of vessels that carry toxins to your lymph nodes which then break down and purify waste. Some signs that it is overworked are cellulite, puffiness and, mostly, dark circles under the eyes. This type of massage stimulates the lymphatic system to allow it to more effectively do its job.Foot Baths – An ionizer sits in a footbath with your feet; acting as a conductor it pulls neutralized particles (toxins, heavy metals, etc) out of your body.
Infrared Sauna – Also called Heat Stress Detoxifaction – there are many powerful reasons to have an infrared sauna. When you sweat, your body eliminates toxins; this is a profound method of eliminating environmental chemicals that are stored in fat cells. Start out for only 15 minutes at 150 degrees. Regular use contributes to as much as a 75% reduction of harmful toxins.