After the Christmas break I’m as stiff as a board.
I thought that lying on the couch watching nine hours of box sets after a 13 hour sleep would make me feel refreshed, but I feel terrible. Exhausted and aching all over!
I used to think that back pain and sciatica was a normal part of life, until a trainer told me it’s usually a symptom of a tight muscle somewhere else. Usually the back of your legs or glutes. Who knew you could go from not being able to pick up a basket in Aldi to full mobility, just by stretching your legs out?!
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Aches and niggles are a part of life. A lot of us are just carrying on with things, in a little bit of everyday pain. Are you living on painkillers just to do your desk job and play with your kids? Lots of full time working parents and mums post birth, are. But what can you do?
There aren’t many symptoms or health problems that aren’t improved by losing a bit of weight, eating nutrient rich foods, quitting smoking, drinking less and getting regular exercise. And that’s a bitter pill to swallow. It’s also really hard to break habits.
I’d much prefer a diagnosis and a prescription cure, but more often than not, the GP will send you home with 'lifestyle advice' to relieve your ailments. So where can you turn?
Meet Liverpool-based mum of two April Bradbury. Once a property lawyer living with severe muscle pain, April is now a somatics practitioner. After trying all kinds of different practices and techniques for her severe neck pain, April’s yoga teacher recommended she look into somatics, which is a bit like yoga, specifically for aches, pains and mobility.
The movement-based therapy claims to relieve all kinds of bodily pain like sciatica and plantar fasciitis. April discovered Martha Peterson of Essential Somatics online and booked on to a workshop that proved to be the start of a transformational journey.
Today April specialises in helping parents feel their best. She said: “I find that parents are my key clients. Dads who have bad backs and can’t run round with the kids like they want to. Mums who have loads of aches and pains and can’t carry their babies. My job is to help get them back to their physical best.
“Somatics helped me so much, I wanted to help more people like me. So I started to train in it. I adjusted my working hours to part time to set up my somatics practice alongside my law job. Then my first week of being part time I found out I was pregnant. My three years of training was all undertaken either pregnant or with a new born baby in tow.
"Then as I qualified, I was ready to pop again. Looking back I must have been insane, but I was just so determined. I must say my trainer, Martha had so much patience with me. I had a week old baby breast feeding on demand while I was trying to learn and practise on my fellow students. Upon finishing maternity leave with my second, I left law and went full time somatic practitioner and teacher.
"The pandemic threw a bit of a spanner in the works as teaching online with a four and two year old was no mean feat. But we got through it and now they are both in school I can dedicate more time to my clinic and helping people get out of pain. Especially if it prevents them from enjoying their life, hobbies and work. You can find April on Instagram @synergy_somatics
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