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exercises for knee pain when walking

January 7, 2025 · In: Body Region Support, Knee, Science-Backed Education

Knee Pain When Walking? How to Walk with Pain Free Knees

Walking should be a welcome daily activity that doesn’t come with discomfort. Yet, for many, daily steps can come with either a sharp or throbbing sensation of knee pain. Knee…

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recovery after meniscus repair

December 31, 2024 · In: Injuries and Surgeries, Science-Backed Education

Recovery After Meniscus Repair: What to Expect

When dealing with injuries, recovery can take either a surgical or a conservative approach. If you are someone dealing with a surgical repair of a torn meniscus, recovery after meniscus…

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shoulder instability

December 17, 2024 · In: Movement, Strength for Resilience

7 Important Exercises for Shoulder Instability

Shoulder instability is a condition that can significantly impact both athletic performance and everyday life. It occurs when the humerus (upper arm bone) is forced out of the glenoid fossa….

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core stability exercises

December 10, 2024 · In: Movement, Strength for Resilience

Unlock Your Athletic Potential With Core Stability Exercises

Core stability. We all hear it, but what is it? It does refer to the core, and a strong one, at that. But core stability is much more than just…

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engage your core

December 3, 2024 · In: Pain Science and Healing, Science-Backed Education

What It Actually Means to ‘Engage Your Core’

We’ve all heard it before. You’re in a fitness class or you’re working out with your trainer and you hear, “Engage your core.” But what does it really mean to…

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rhomboid pain

November 26, 2024 · In: Back, Body Region Support, Science-Backed Education

How to Fix Your Rhomboid Pain

Have you been experiencing a nagging discomfort, soreness, or pain between your shoulder blades? Many will consider this a pain due to the rhomboid muscle, as it is in this…

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vagal tone

November 12, 2024 · In: Nervous System Regulation

What is Vagal Tone and How to Improve It

Your physical and mental health are intimately intertwined. How so? Through the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a part of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and orchestrates responses that…

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exercises for shoulder impingement

November 5, 2024 · In: Mobility and Restoration, Movement

Exercises for Shoulder Impingement and Pain Free Movement

Shoulder impingement is a very common issue. You may be experiencing it if you feel a pinching sensation at the top of your shoulder when reaching overhead. It’s prevalence is…

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squat depth

October 29, 2024 · In: Mobility and Restoration, Movement

Want to Increase Your Squat Depth? Learn From a PT

The squat is an important and fundamental exercise that is not only great for fitness, but for many everyday activities we need to perform throughout the day. Any time we…

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tmj exercises

October 22, 2024 · In: Mobility and Restoration, Movement

TMJ Exercises: How to Unlock Jaw Pain Relief

TMJ dysfunction has been found to occur more frequency in younger individuals and can affect 5-12% of the population. If you or someone you know experiences discomfort in your jaw,…

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Meet Tera

Meet Tera
hi friends!

I'm a practicing physical therapist based out of sunny SoCal who loves to educate others and share information and knowledge. You can typically find me hard at work trying to manage normal life or cuddled up under a blanket enjoying coffee or desserts I can never seem to get away from!

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Featured Posts

Woman in athletic wear sitting on a yoga mat, pausing rather than working out, representing rest as part of consistency

Can’t Stay Consistent With Exercise? It’s Not a Discipline Problem

Woman sitting quietly on a couch in soft natural light, deciding whether to do active recovery or take a full rest day

Active Recovery vs Rest: How to Know What Your Body Actually Needs

Woman with chronic pain considering whether to exercise

How Exercise Helps Chronic Pain Without Making It Worse

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Wired/restless and heavy/depleted are both signals Wired/restless and heavy/depleted are both signals of nervous system overload. They show up differently and they need opposite responses.

Wired looks like:
- can’t sit still
- mind racing
- looking at your phone every 2 minutes
- exhausted, but unable to fall asleep

The system is activated and the activation needs somewhere to go. Gentle movement helps because it gives that activation a channel out of the body. It could be a walk, slow mobility work, or doing the dishes. Anything that lets the system move without adding load.

Depleted looks like:
- limbs feel like lead
- brain is foggy
- hard to make a decision
- hard to get off the couch

The system is running on empty. Adding movement compounds the load and the body crashes harder.

It’s the same dysregulation with two presentations. Reaching for the wrong one is mostly why recovery doesn’t work.

Most women I work with describe themselves as “always tired, but wired” or “wired but exhausted.” That’s not a contradiction. It’s your nervous system telling you which lane you’re in on a given hour of a given day.

What your body is signaling changes. The response should too.

If you want help reading your own signals, comment SIGNALS for the free nervous system workbook.

#burnoutrecovery #burnoutrecoverycoaching #regulateyournervoussystem #hsp #highlysensitiveperson
The label got attached to slow yoga, easy walks, a The label got attached to slow yoga, easy walks, and gentle bike rides. Active recovery became a category of workouts.

But the label is doing the wrong job. What makes movement “recovery” isn’t the modality. It’s whether your body finishes with more capacity than it started with.

A 20 minute walk can be active recovery on a Monday and a workout your body can’t handle on a Wednesday. It’s the same walk on a different day with a different answer.

The thing most of us are missing isn’t a better workout schedule. It’s a daily look at what your body can actually hold. Some days, that assessment points to movement. Some days, it points to rest. Either one, when it’s used at the right time, it supports the body. When used at the wrong time, it makes things worse.

If you want help learning to read your body signals, comment SIGNALS for the free nervous system workbook.

#activerecovery #pushcrashcycle #listentoyourbody #nervoussystemregulation #chronicpainmanagement
This pattern was mine for years. And if your weeke This pattern was mine for years. And if your weekend looks anything like the one I am about to describe, you already know how Sunday night feels.

Rough week, exhausted by Friday, on the couch all weekend hoping to reset. Sunday night, I would be more depleted than when I started with nothing prepped for the week ahead. And the conclusions running through my head about what kind of person I must be to keep ending up here did not help.

The fix I always reached for was discipline…more structure, more consistency, and more grit. The crash kept coming anyway.

What moved the needle was learning to read what my body could hold, day by day. Some days a workout, some days a walk, some days a couch Sunday was the choice. The decision was made each morning, based on what was actually there.

If you want help learning to read the signs and what to do for them, comment SIGNALS and I will send you the free nervous system workbook.

#chronicpain #chronicfatigue #nervoussystemhealth #painscience #listentoyourbody
If by Wednesday you are already running on fumes, If by Wednesday you are already running on fumes, this one is for you. I called myself undisciplined for years.

Every Sunday night I would land on the same conclusion: more structure, more consistency, and more grit. That was the fix. And every Friday I would crash anyway.

Here is what I did not know about the cycle.

Both doors lead to the same room.

Door one is push. The body sends signals about what it can hold that day. Discipline overrides the signal. Push past the signal once, you crash once. Push past it for a year, you live in the crash.

Door two is rest. The week was rough so the weekend is for resetting. You sit Saturday hoping it works. Sunday comes and you feel worse, so you rest again. By Sunday night nothing is prepped and you are still depleted. The week starts in deficit, so you push harder to catch up, and the crash arrives by Friday.

Different doors. Same room. The room is the cycle.

The missing piece was never more discipline. It was a daily read on what my body could hold and the willingness to let the read be the decision instead of overriding it.

Some days the body can hold a workout. Some days a walk. Some days a couch Sunday is the work. The decision gets made each morning, based on what the body is signaling that day.

If you want help learning to read your own signals, comment SIGNALS for the free nervous system workbook.

#nervoussystemregulation #nervoussystemwork #burnoutisreal #lıstentoyourbody #reclaimyourenergy
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