Coming in towards the final two weeks of the working year, one of the trickiest things for anyone can be dealing with a new client. Due to the fact that they will without a doubt need subsequent treatments and due to a time shortage that is not always achievable.

I found myself in this situation with one of my new clients “Mariah” in late 2018. She had come in with high levels of neck pain, upper back pain, jaw pain and headaches. Thankfully on the day we were able to make a great deal of change to her pain but something that we discussed in our initial consultation was her activity levels or lack thereof.

Part of our jobs as Myotherapists is not only to treat people but to also motivate and educate the population. It was something I had to inform Mariah about this time around, the necessity of exercising and all the benefits that come with it. We were able to establish quite quickly that the bulk of Mariah’s pain was workplace related due to a range of factors from poor ergonomics, to multiple hours being seated at a desk without a break and bad posture.

These things are more than enough to lead to problems later down the line.

Upon returning from our holidays I saw Mariah again and we discovered something interesting, she was feeling great the entire time she was on her break, but upon returning to work she found herself in pain once again within four days. We spoke about the importance of postural reminders, exercise suggestions and other little lifestyle factors to help her.

What Mariah did on our very next appointment shocked me, she came into the clinic with active-wear, was carrying a water bottle and had brilliant news to tell me. Mariah had taken on all of the advice I had told her over our last two sessions, she had just come from a walk, she was starting Pilates, she was correcting her own posture at work, she was getting up and moving from time to time and the list goes on.

Needless to say I was extremely proud of her and happy for her.

Mariah is now well and truly on a better path for her general health and wellbeing, she recognised she had to make some changes to help herself and had a terrific mentality with the entire situation. I now invite you to ask yourself “What changes can I make to help myself?”.

Within my role as a Myotherapist I always tell my clients I am not the answer to your problems but more of a facilitator, we work together and get you to where you want to be.