The Care and Keeping of You: Thoughts from Elizabeth Goldberg

Ever wonder what to do between massages? We asked the wise team at Freed Bodyworks what wisdom they have for clients who want to take care of aches and pains between sessions. Here's what Elizabeth Goldberg had to say:

Pain, oh pain, oh pain. Like many of my colleagues, I recommend a tasteful balance of heat, ice, and stretching. My favorite DIY heat delivery system is the dad sock-and-rice combo in the microwave. (Don’t know how to make a rice sock? Check out this great WikiHow link!)

I prefer the "dad sock," i.e., athletic size, as it can comfortably wrap around your neck and rest on tight chest muscles. When using a larger sock, I recommend tying strings around different intervals of the sock itself to create small pockets of rice so that all of the grains don't fall to either end, but are instead equally distributed.

Magnesium is also very effective at relieving muscle soreness, and wouldn't you know it, in many very delicious foods! High magnesium foods include dark leafy greens (spinach, kale, mustard greens, collards, arugula), black beans, kidney beans, lentils, oatmeal, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts, almonds, and peanuts. (Source: Julie Wendt, LDN, LN, CNS)

And who can resist a nicely toasted pumpkin seed in October? Maybe with a warm, soothing compress on your neck, too!