Early in my manual therapy career, I had an experience that opened my eyes to a certain perspective about health care, healing, and the nature of what humans expect and want from the healing community, be it conventional or complementary. I was working in a clinic that was associated with a vitamin store, and a regular client had come in with a broken arm from a hockey game injury. I assessed and treated his whole body, including the injured arm as best I could around his ca

Mindfulness can change the perception of pain. Everyone's experience, tolerance of, and reactivity to pain, is unique. There is one common thread, though, that I've seen across the board that increases pain, and decreases our ability to manage it: Stress. The stress response unilaterally effects each individual in the same manner: Pain increases. While this appears an obvious comment, many times in the middle of the stressful event, people don't realize the effect that stre