Watch 6-minute video of hand exercises that you can incorporate at any time of your day when hands feel stiff and tired.

Why do we come back to yoga practice? Find out more in this morning pre-yoga self-awareness observation on what yoga means to me.

If you want to find the best what there is in wellness and be kind to yourself do not hesitate and learn to meditate. It may be good to start with a video or an app, but after a while you will realize that there is so many ways to meditate, whether it’s a walk away from busy traffic, closing your eyes at your desk for few minutes, creating an art and getting lost in that project or reading a poem and contemplating its meaning and textures. Go for a walk and listen to the religious service or music. With time it will become such a natural state of being for which you will reach again and again because it feels so good.

I did subscribe to Headspace meditation app this summer as American Medical Association offered it for its members for free. There is so much emphasis on wellness these days, almost like we realized just yesterday that physicians are humans too, prone to stress, breakout, despair and doubt. I admit that the app helped me to dedicate 10 minutes of my time few times a week to a session designed for beginners. I was advised to sit down, look for solitude, close my eyes, take refreshing breaths and the rest of meditation followed. Each session felt very good. At first I was a little frustrated that I keep unfocusing and being distracted, but with practice that becomes a secondary issue and something not to stress about so not to contradict what you try to accomplish with meditation. One session described this sensation as seeing the picture of big blue sky and clouds passing, but not being taken away or overwhelmed by the clouds which will be there, like life events, no matter what and same can be said about thoughts in our heads, let them pass, but do not allow them to control you. Easier said than done, but the moderator of the sessions explains the concept of practice very well and the sessions are simple enough to follow.

This spring and summer something fantastic happened. Despite the dark days of pandemic and national terror induced by the tiny living organism with a pretty name Covid19 folks wanted to get out of isolations, physical distance locations, garages and basements, tiny houses in backyards and newly built tree houses. Enough is enough and live has to go on, but when you get out for some fresh air what do you do? This is the thing, we took to biking. We bike in dozens, trails are squeaking from amount of wheels hitting them, they are so overloaded. I have never seen that many bikers on famous Cape Cod Rail Trail. The bike shops have seen revival and sustainability of their business as they offered something that gyms could not do: promise of physical activity in fresh air, relative safety and safe distance from others at the same time.

If like me you type on computer all day, or have awkward positions of fingers and hands in relation to your laptop, or even smart phone, you will understand while I reached out to my colleague Michael Nula, founder of Elite physical therapy office in lovely Rhode Island, to converse about the stress to our hands. We talk specifically about condition that is referred to as De Quervaine’s tenosynovitis or radial styloid tenosynovitis, the disorder that is degenerative and possibly inflammatory in nature, and that all of us may suffer from due to overuse of thumb and forearm tendons.