In this episode of What The Health, we explore the benefits of the Feldenkrais Method with special guest Suzanne Ausnit. She is a certified Feldenkrais practitioner with extensive experience in helping people improve their physical and mental well-being through this innovative approach.

Join us as we delve into the world of the Feldenkrais Method with Suzanne Ausnit, exploring its potential for unlocking movement capability at any age. Discover how this mind-body approach can enhance physical functioning, alleviate chronic pain, and promote overall well-being.

Stay active, keep moving and tap into your body's untapped potential with the Feldenkrais Method!

Don't miss out on other health and wellness insights. Join our WellWell-Being community at WellWellUSA.com for exclusive discounts on a wide range of health products and services.

Chapter Summaries;

[00:00:30] Introduction to the Episode and the Importance of Physical Activity

[00:03:51] Introduction to the Guest, Suzanne Ausnit, and Her Expertise in the Feldenkrais Method

[00:05:20] Discuss the Mind-Body Connection and How the Feldenkrais Method Enhances Cognitive Function

[00:06:48] The Host Asks About the Age Range for Practicing the Feldenkrais Method

[00:09:56] Elaborates on the Connection Between Movement, Brain Function and Overall Well-Being

[00:11:20] The Differences Between the Feldenkrais Method and Other Exercise Approaches

[00:12:55] Discusses the Holistic and Individualized Nature of the Feldenkrais Method

[00:14:33] Explanation of the Importance of Slowing Down and Paying Attention to Movement

[00:18:47] Highlights the Effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method in Relieving Chronic Pain

[00:20:10] Discussion About the Physical Barriers to Activity as People Age

[00:24:00] No Barriers to Practicing the Feldenkrais Method at Any Age and Emphasizes the Need to Slow Down and Pay Attention

[00:25:00] Advice on Staying Physically Active

[00:26:00] Conclusion of Interview: Suzanne Provides Her Insights and Provides Contact Information for Further Inquiries

[00:28:00] Health Hacks for Older Adults to Get Started and Stay Active

[00:30:00] Closing Remarks

Don't miss an episode of What the Health Subscribe now on your favorite podcast app to get the latest news and insights on health and wellness issues delivered right to your device.

Let’s Connect:

Connect with Suzanne Ausnit;

• Website: http://www.move2livenow.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzanneausnit/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063767164070

Connect with WellWell USA;

• Website: https://wellwellusa.com/
• Join WellWell-Being: https://wellwellusa.com/register/
• All Things WellWell USA: https://linkin.bio/wellwellusa

Mobility & Healthy Aging

John Salak: Sometimes you just need to sweat it, especially if you're older by sweat it. We're not encouraging worry or anxiety. No, we're talking about physical activity or exercise. There are reams of research on how exercise can benefit all ages. These pluses cover everything from weight loss and stress reduction to building heart health and lowering the risk of various diseases for mature adults.

To be clear, Activity can't offset diseases like Alzheimer's, but Canada. Simon Fraser University supports the notion that activity, light exercise and social engagement can reduce memory decline in individuals 65 to 89. Better yet, the impact of this trifecta only increases with age, want more benefits.

Activity also helps mature adults build motor skills, improve muscle endurance, reduce stress intention, strengthen immune systems. Built heart health and enhanced balance. The combined impact can also reduce feelings of loneliness in older adults and even lessen their chances of other injuries.

Try 75 minutes of vigorous exercise such as hiking, jogging, or running. It's also important to blend in exercises to strengthen muscles and improve balance a couple of times a week. The benefits of exercise aren't debatable. What's troubling is that mature adults are chronically sedentary and their inactivity only grows with age.

What tends to stop many people are the aches, pains, and physical challenges we all face as the years roll on. There is no way around these challenges, but there are ways to loosen their grips so that older adults are freer to get out and get moving. That's why we've lined up a special guest for this podcast, a Felton Christ practitioner who, among other things, specializes in helping the young and the old overcome physical constraints and aches and pains so they can move freer and easier whenever they're out.

Free and feeling good about themselves as they age. So we've called in, an expert on this field, Suzanne ak, who has led an extremely varied career. She has started out as a journalist working in the US and Europe, later became, trained yoga instructor and then still later became a certified Felden Christ practitioner.

And we'll get into exactly what Felden Christ is in a moment. But Suzanne, Takes all of these skills and puts 'em under the umbrella of the company she founded. Move to Live now.com. And in talking to Suzanne before the podcast, I asked her, how do you describe yourself? And she said the best way to describe me is as a movement educator.

So I would like to welcome Suzanne to our broadcast.

John Salak: So Suzanne, let's start with, How important is it for mature adults, let's say people 50, 60, 70, 80, whatever, to stay active? And if it is important, why it's important.

Suzanne Ausnit: Well, you've heard the old adage, if you don't move, you lose it.

Right? Move it or lose it. It's pretty basic and that's true at any age, but especially as you get older because all kinds of other problems happen when you get older. You lose muscle mass, you lose bone strength. And the fear of falling is huge. So balance is very important. And as you get older, it's very important to.

John Salak: It sounds like it's both a, physical issue and as we've written about lots of times at WellWell, U S A, a mental health issue because obviously you wanna stay active for those reasons. As you said, just independence. You're gonna independent, you're gonna feel isolated. This we know has an impact.

It creates loneliness, lack of social integration, and that's gonna have an impact on your mental health as well as your physical health, I assume?

Suzanne Ausnit: Absolutely. It's always a combination of factors. It's never just one thing. As you get older, if you lose a loved one or you lose friends, it's natural to.

Withdraw or you have a physical injury, maybe you fell, you don't want to move, you don't want to do things, so,

I mean, we talked about if you don't move, if you can't move, you're not gonna be able to do things. Why are older people just, you're saying, is it muscle loss, bone loss?

Suzanne Ausnit: You lose bone density as you get older. One way to maintain bone density is to stay active. Same. You lose muscles, so if you lift lightweights or you do any kind of activity, even walking, will help you. Stay fit.

John Salak: From what I understand, you are incredibly active. you're into hiking, you work with bands at times, you work with lightweights.

, and I think other aspects too. So you sort of touched on a little bit, but from your perspective, and you have a, a different perspective maybe than some others in the field, but what are the best ways for adults, assuming that, they can overcome any aches and pains to stay active? And again, it's in a very, I assume for somebody who's 50, 60, 70, and 80 and above.

And I think one thing to remember is you don't have to walk three miles, four miles at one go. You could walk half a mile and then maybe later a quarter of a mile, as long as you have. Continued exercise throughout the day. It could be just going up and down the stairs a couple times a day. There are all these little things that you can choose to do to remain active on a very basic level.

John Salak: What about extending that a little bit? And I know it's gonna vary by person, and you're not advising someone who's injured or something like that too, but weights are still an option.

Suzanne Ausnit: You know, weights are excellent, but lightweights, but it really depends how you do the weights because you can injure yourself even doing very lightweights.

From a chair or how do you turn around in bed? Most people just do it. If we had to think about how we do every single thing we do, we'd never get anything done. But if you go back to how babies learn how to move, they do things hundreds of different ways, and it's those hundreds of different ways that feed the brain and in the Feldenkrais Method.

John Salak: Someone who may not be in developing Christ or be aware of it might still not understand what you're doing.

Why would someone come to you and I know that you ha you have clients, that are young and old and in different conditions. They're coming to you for different reasons. But let's concentrate on first why an older adult would come to you. Is it a matter of injury? Is it a matter of increasing flexibility or strength?

A combination of those, and then sort of break down a little bit, simpler as to what you're going to do for somebody.

Suzanne Ausnit: So, older adults come to me for a variety of reasons.

One is pain. Some people have chronic pain and they don't know how to get out of the chronic pain. They've tried physical therapy, they've tried many, maybe other modalities, acupuncture, therapeutic yoga, but it hasn't worked.

They get stiffer. And especially if they're very active, they tend to stiffen up. And the Feldenkrais method definitely helps you stay supple, but it also helps you reorganize. Reorganize so that you move in a better way. And it also, if you practice this, regularly, it makes you more resilient.

John Salak: It sounds like to me that Feld in Christ and from what I know about it, and I know a little bit about it.

Is not an exercise in and of itself, but it's more a mechanism to get your body aligned, get it back in shape, meaning more aligned in increasing balance and those sort of things. And that then allows you to engage in those physical activities you're talking about, whether that's walking or whatnot.

Suzanne Ausnit: You're absolutely correct, John. It's a learning modality. It's, in a way we're reeducating the brain, but not by saying, you can't do this, or you have to do this with these very gentle movements. You're encouraged to pay attention to how you move. So it could be something as simple as if you're lying on the floor and you lift your shoulder, the action is could you lift your shoulder?

If you lift your right shoulder, what should happen is the head should gently move a little bit to the left, but with many people, it might turn to the right, it might not move at all. So by guiding people, To pay attention to how they move. They start sensing all these different options and possibilities.

And it can be done two ways. It can be taught. Verbally as a class, or it can be taught on a table where the practitioner will gently lift a shoulder and look and see what happens, and then try and figure out is it perhaps the jaw that is not moving or the eyes that are going in the, in a different direction?

We play and in the process of the playing and in the process of the person on the table or on the floor, paying attention to how they move, things begin to change in the brain. And I have to stress, it's not about the movement itself, it's about the attention to the movement, and that's what makes this.

Somatic practice. So different maybe from other modalities.

People who are stiff, have an injury, are in pain. You can help identify why that pain is occurring and how to lessen that pain or relieve that pain entirely. Is that correct? And it, and it may not be apparent. That's what we're saying. Your, pain may be on your shoulder. But the reason the pain is in your shoulder may be something else that's occurring.

Ex And I mean, that's the key for these, for older adults.

Suzanne Ausnit: Yes. I mean, you have culprit and victims. So something is hurting, but it's not because your knee is hurting. , it could be anything.

John Salak: Right. And the process helps people, the

Suzanne Ausnit: process helps people become aware of all these different things.

It's really based on how babies learn. And babies don't learn like you're taught to learn. In school, babies sense it's all about sensation and they learn to turn over, they learn to lift the head or they learn to walk and they try millions of different ways until it's aha, something works and we lose that as we age.

If you think, you go back to school and you're in school for all these years and you're told not to move, you're sitting at a desk crunched up or looking at your phone, and in the process of. Getting older and becoming an adult, you develop a lot of bad movement habits. We all do, and especially now with cell phones.

We're not saying don't use your cell phone. How could you do it without being in that position that's creating problems?

John Salak: Why is it that most people haven't heard about Feld in Christ? I mean, this isn't something you, from what I understand, study probably maybe hundreds if not thousands of hours.

It's a long program to be certified as a practitioner. You don't have to be licensed, but you do have to be certified as a practitioner. aren't we more aware of felt in Christ and what it can do? No, that may not be your expert area, but it is unique because it's known better in other countries.

Suzanne Ausnit: I think it's a marketing problem and it's hard to describe the feld Andre me that I think that's part of the problem. It's a somatic movement modality it's experiential. You really have to experience it to understand it. It's not for everybody.

And you have a lot of people who are not curious. , but if you have those two elements, that's really all you need to benefit from the Feldenkrais Method.

John Salak: I've, I've been to a couple sessions just to experience it.

It's almost surprisingly gentle. It's physical, but it's not aggressively physical, I guess I would say is that a fair, it's incredibly gentle, but the impact that it has?

So if you. Press your left shoulder back into the floor, suddenly you'll feel, ah, the right shoulder just lifted easily. So we change the attention constantly so that the whole body is involved, the whole skeleton. And it's never just one thing,

John Salak: and it obviously probably differs from person to person.

The everybody has their unique. Quirks and bad quirks.

John Salak: And we've touched on this a little bit, but I want to go back to what mature adults are facing and you, your, a lot of your clients, uh, I assume are, are mature people, really 40, 50. And you've dealt with younger clients, you've dealt with babies. I understand that there's a different, uh, set of practices or, or aligned practices for that.

For the older adults, and you've touched on it, but just tell us what you come across in terms of what they're dealing with. Is it, what are the prevalent conditions? Is it an injury? Is it soreness? Is it gentle, general stiffness? Is it loss of balance?

Suzanne Ausnit: I. Well, they're all those issues, John. So it just depends.

So I'd say back pain is something I see a lot , and. Lack. People get stiff , as they get older. And just doing some Feldon Christ movements every day, even if it's just for 15 minutes, can make an amazing difference.

John Salak: And if you're doing the Feldon Christ, it doesn't mean you're blocking doing other stuff. It's I just wanna emphasize that you do your veres and it helps you move less pain. You're able to bike, you're able to height.

Suzanne Ausnit: Yeah, of course. I mean, it, it improves your walking. It improves. That's it. It's a method of, I'd say improvement.

So say you're walking down the street and suddenly your knee hurts. Would you just continue walking in the same way you're walking, or would you maybe think of some of the. Lessons you've done and say, okay, maybe I'm gonna stop for a second and bring my attention to my other knee and my other foot, or maybe I'm gonna bring my attention to my arm.

Is my arm swinging, or you have all these possibilities. I think what I love about it is once you've. Done it for a while, you can help yourself and apply it to every single thing you do. Even if you're in the kitchen and you're taking something out of the dishwasher. How do you take that plate out?

John Salak: So, and this, is not exclusive to you or your experience, but, We know that there are physical barriers to age. As we said, it's just natural. You need to do a different thing and you are not as active or as strong or as whatever, as balanced as you are when you're 20 or 30.

But for someone who's 50, 60, 70, 80, I assume that these people not can, but should stay active. You don't see any barriers to activity as you get older?

Suzanne Ausnit: None at all. I mean, the Feldenkrais Method can be done sitting in a chair. We have chair lessons. You could do it lying in bed if had serious, serious issues.

And I think what's tough for people to understand is that it forces you to slow down and pay attention. And most of us are so used to doing things quickly that we don't know how to slow down. It goes against what we do. When you have a habit, you just, you do it right, you don't think about it.

And by slowing down and paying attention, it does something neurologically to the brain.

John Salak: Okay, so we are gonna wrap this up in a second, but before we do, what advice you want to give people at any age, what they should be doing and what they shouldn't be doing in terms of physical activity or how to stay physically active.

John Salak: keep moving.

Suzanne Ausnit: Ultimately keep moving, but to really attend to the how of the movement.

And that's where the Feldenkrais Method can really help you. And as I said before in the beginning, for chronic pain, it can make a huge difference psychologically, mentally, it can relax the whole system and, uh, Many people as they age, develop chronic pain. So I'd stress that it's a wonderful method for people with chronic pain.

Relieve the

John Salak: pain. Help yourself. Stay active. Yep. Help yourself. Stay active, stay mentally and physically fit

Suzanne Ausnit: you got it, John. All right.

Suzanne Ausnit: So email, um, it's Suzanne with a z two ends. E. And then my last name is A U S N I T, so it's Suzanne AusNet, one word@gmail.com. You can text me or call me. My number is nine seven three two oh four. Oh 9 2 9. That's 9 7 3 2 0 4 0 9 2 9. And of course, um, check out my website because I have a lot of articles on the Feldenkrais Method.

John Salak: Okay. Suzanne, thank you very much, and we hope we all stay moving.

We're gonna serve up some health hacks shortly on how to get and stay active. But before that, we want to offer up an exclusive discount from one of our many affiliates. Members of our well wellbeing community can enjoy up to more than 20% off their first order from ortho feet, which specializes in innovative foot pain relief technology.

And obviously if you eliminate discomfort, it will be easier to stay active. Now joining our Well Wellbeing community is easy and free, and it opens you up to hundreds of other exclusive discounts on health and wellness products and services. To join, just visit WellWell usa.com. Go to Milton's discounts on the pull down menu, and you'll see the signup sheet.

Three, exercise with others. There are plenty of ways to do this. Just look online for local opportunities and you'll find them working out with others regardless of the activity, not only makes exercising more enjoyable, it opens you up to social engagements, which are also essential for mature health.

Use sun protection and have water available. Six, think safety. If you're biking, use a helmet. If you're hiking, make sure you have proper ankle support and even wear knee pads and gloves in case of a slip. Hiking sticks are also recommended. Also, no matter the activity, take time to warm up and loosen up before starting.

Ditto for taking time to cool down after intense activity. Finally, if you're not sure if an activity is right for you, check with your physician first. That's it for this edition of What to Health. I want to thank our special guest, Suzanne Sk, for taking time to speak with us and I want to encourage anyone with questions to get in touch with her directly.

More importantly, I want to encourage everyone, no matter their age to keep moving. Thanks for listening.