Most of us have experienced anxiety at some point in our life. Stress from work or school; worries about finances, personal relationships and all the other stressors life offers is a normal part of living and when well-managed, can motivate us to do our best. But when stress is out of balance and becomes overwhelming we can suffer physically and mentally. Anxiety may present as nervousness, increased heart rate, sweating, difficulty breathing, and may even result in panic attacks.

We experience anxiety when our endocrine system is being overly stimulated. This can be caused by life events, specific thought patterns, or even by food and drinks we consume like caffeine and sugar. Our body over-produces a hormone called cortisol and it can perpetuate and build the longer we remain in this state of mind.

When you feel those symptoms of anxiousness start to develop, one way to help control them is to divert your train of thought by participating in activities. Staying busy helps us move our focus off of what we are stressing about.

Once we’re out of the acute stage of anxiety, exercise can benefit both our physical and mental health. Staying active helps our endocrine system to produce more endorphins, which are “feel good” chemicals produced by the pituitary gland. Going on a walk, run, hike, bike ride, or any other activity you enjoy helps encourage this internal response.

Massage therapy has also been proven to help reduce anxiety. Even just having a quiet room to yourself and being able to relax in a controlled atmosphere helps to reduce stress hormones and puts the body in a state of relaxation. It helps a person feel calmer and more able to cope with everyday stresses.

We all aspire for good habits that support our bodies in staying healthy and calm. But life has a way of throwing all of us off our “A game” from time to time. Though we agree with Ben Franklin that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, if you need a reset to get you back on track — we’ve got you.

Stay well, stay healthy, stay moving, and we hope to see you soon.
All of us at Loosen Up!

After all this time we finally have some good news!

We are entering into a new phase of reopening. September 21st we will be back in the office working with clients who have doctor’s referrals. This referral can come from your physician or from a chiropractor. All we need is an email, or you can bring a physical one with you to your appointment. When things open up more in Contra Costa County, we will happily take clients without a referral but for now that is all we are allowed to accommodate indoors at our office. We also have a few new steps in our process, which we have listed and explained on our website (and have announced previously). I’m sure many of you are now familiar with these new standards but please check them out, and if you have any questions about them, we would love to hear from you.

Another way we are adapting to this new limitation on indoor services is we are now offering outcall appointments! Booking will be similar but we will not be able to offer online booking for these appointments since we need to manually account for commute times. Please call us or email if you are interested in booking one of these types of appointments. These appointments are only offered in outdoor spaces so if you have any questions on how that works, please feel free to reach out.

We are going to have some price adjustments coming to make up for the longer hours all of us are having to put in to make this work. We will be sure to give you plenty of notice once we get going so you can stock up on gift cards and packages before that happens. Also any existing member credits acquired during the closure will be honored at full previous pricing.

We are beyond excited to see all of you and want to thank you again for your support and patience while we’ve all had to adapt to our changing times. Even if we struggled to return all of your voicemails and emails, hearing from you meant the world to us while we were busy learning how we could return to our tables.

Can’t wait to see you all soon!!

Gina Tibbs

During the coronavirus outbreak, many of us are stuck at home. Often, we’re working at our dining room tables and feeling tense about life in general.

We’re launching a series of self care at home videos to help our community through this time.

Below is the first in the series. You can find all our videos on our YouTube channel. Take care!