I was asked a few days ago how to deal with sciatic pain. Before talking about how to deal with it, I think it is important to know what sciatic pain is and what can cause it.

The sciatic nerve comes out of the lower spine and as you can see in this picture, it passes through the pelvis beneath the piriformus muscle. Sciatic pain is caused when the sciatic nerve gets pinched, usually by inflammation or adhesions in the piriformus muscle.

The person who asked me about sciatic pain said her pain usually comes when he has been running hard, so her discomfort is probably caused by a tight piriformus muscle and can probably be handled with better stretching before and after her run. I found a great video of how to properly stretch out the piriformus on YouTube.

I believe that this stretch will also greatly benefit people who have chronic sciatic pain. If this is you, please keep in mind that your discomfort wasn’t created in just one day, so it will probably take more than five or ten minutes of stretching to get rid of it.

If I was having to deal with this sciatic pain on a continuing basis then I would have to find something else to help me get through. For me, that would be a weekly massage to work on the piriformus and some magnets to get me through the days in between. Probably the easiest form of magnet to use would be a magnetic chair pad for when you are sitting and a magnetic mattress pad for when you are laying down.

I hope that helps.

Wayne Woodworth

Disclaimer: I am a massage therapist, not a doctor. These are my opinions of how to work with sciatic pain based on my training as a massage therapist. If you believe that you may have a medical condition then I strongly encourage you to see a trained medical professional.

Someone told me recently that they believed that another company’s magnets must be superior to Nikken’s magnets because they are stronger.

There are companies out there who sell extremely high-powered magnets and that claim that exposure to just the negative pole is beneficial and exposure to only the positive pole is harmful. They also claim that these high-powered magnets help with cancer and the like.

Nikken’s magnets, by comparison, are much weaker. Nikken’s magnetic products also provide a balanced magnetic field created with both positive and negative poles with the intent of balancing the body’s energy field. Nikken also doesn’t claim that their magnets will cure cancer or any other condition. It’s actually illegal for anyone who isn’t a medical doctor to make those kinds of claims. By balancing the body’s magnetic field, Nikken’s magnets allow the body to do what it does best, heal itself.

The inventor behind Nikken’s magnets believes that it is irresponsible for companies to sell such high-strength magnets. The body’s energy system is very subtle. It has very weak magnetic and electrical fields. Magnets are used to create energy because they influence moving charged particles. High-powered magnets will create a lot of energy which will very easily over-stimulate the body’s energy systems.

While possibly beneficial for extreme cases like cancer, I believe that people who are generally healthy need to be cautious of using high-strength magnets. With all that said, Nikken has been making magnets for wellness purposes for 35 years with excellent results. They wouldn’t still be around otherwise.

Wayne Woodworth
Magnetic Massage Therapist

Have you heard of Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome? It is the name given to a host of symptoms that arise when a person has limited exposure to the Earth’s natural magnetic field.

How is that possible? Other than astronauts, we can’t leave the Earth, right?

Physiologists have determined that we receive about a third of our energy from external sources, like the Earth’s magnetic field. Dr. Kyoichi Nakagawa, M.D. believes that our exposure to the Earth’s magnetic field is reduced by the amount of time we spend in buildings and cars, and that this may interfere with our health. The effects of Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome can include headaches, stiffness in the muscles, insomnia, constipation, and fatigue. Long term deficiency can result in disease, reduce our ability to heal, and leave us more susceptible to microorganisms (bacteria and viruses) and toxins in our environment.

I found this information in a section on Magnetic Field Therapy in the book, Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition by Trivieri & Anderson. Scary stuff, huh?

Nikken shuns the term, magnetic therapy as it relates to their products because they don’t want them to be labeled as medical devices.  All the same, they do have a natural magnetic field and are applied to the body with the intent to generate a positive effect. You know that you can take vitamins and other supplements to improve our nutrition. Nikken’s magnetic products are magnetic supplements to improve our exposure to natural magnetic fields, basically bringing them inside the buildings and cars that are otherwise blocking us from it.

If you are feeling any of the possible symptoms of Magnetic Field Deficiency Syndrome and have tried other remedies without much success, then give magnets a try. It can’t hurt.

Wayne Woodworth
Magnetic Massage Therapist

PS. If you have an implanted device, such as a pacemaker, then check with your doctor before using magnets. Pacemakers generate their own electromagnetic fields and external magnets may interfere with them.

A friend asked me recently why I didn’t have more massage therapists working with me to build exposure for Nikken. I’m told that most chiropractors usually have a product they sell, usually a nutritional supplement or something along those lines. Most massage therapists I know rely entirely on their service for income. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

Service-based businesses are severely limited in the amount of income that they can generate. A massage therapist makes somewhere between $15 and $100 per hour in my area depending on if they work for someone or for themselves. Either way, they are limited by the number of hours they can work in a day, and by how many appointments they can get scheduled. It makes sense to have a product to help supplement their income for the times when they aren’t fully booked or want to take some time off (or make only $15 an hour).

Chiropractors have figured that out.

I am a massage therapist and was introduced to Nikken by another massage therapist. In my opinion, Nikken’s products are the perfect match for what massage therapists do. Their magnetic items help a therapist’s clients to sleep better and take care of their issues between sessions. They even make magnetic massage tools for therapists to use during a session, and I do use them on my clients.

The bottom line is that, regardless of what company, massage therapists and other wellness practitioners must to have a product line to strengthen their income stream.

Wayne Woodworth
service: Massage Therapist
product: Independent Nikken Distributor

Nikken magnets can help with post workout recovery.

The Winter Olympics are going on right now in Vancouver so I thought I should write a little about how athletes use Nikken’s products, especially the magnets. The Nikken website at one time listed a bunch of athletes who have endorsed Nikken in the past. The list is long gone but the magnetic bracelet that Nikken designed with Shannon Miller, gold medal gymnast, is still available. I also remember seeing a picture of my one of my upline Royal Diamonds with the boxer, Evander Holyfield.

Most athletes like the Nikken magnets because they help speed recovery after a workout. I cannot make medical claims, but as a massage therapist I believe the reason that they work so well for post workout recovery is that they increase blood flow to the areas that need it. Increased blood flow will bring in fresh oxygen and nutrition to restore the muscles and flush out the lactic acid and other wastes that had built up.

For all intents and purposes, the magnets are like a sports massage that can keep going for as long as you use them.

As with anything I have written about Nikken’s products, I am not a medical doctor and do not claim that the products will help you with any particular condition. I use them and I recommend them to people based solely on my experience and other peoples’ testimonials of them.

Wayne Woodworth
Magnetic Massage Therapist

Do you have trouble with places that are sore or tight in your shoulders and/or upper back?  In massage we call them knots or trigger points.  If you go to see a massage therapist about this it will probably hurt because we are taught to press on them and hold until the intensity decreases.  It is also hard on the therapist’s thumbs.  It is no fun for either the client or the therapist.

There is a better way. Magnets do wonders for releasing trigger points and there are two magnetic tools that I use when dealing with them.

First are MagBoys. These are small magnetic balls in a holder that I use to roll rapidly over the trigger point for a few minutes. Unlike Trigger Point Therapy, it doesn’t hurt. Actually, it feels really good and the trigger point melts away.

Second are Power Patches.  PowerPatches are small magnetic buttons stuck to a self-adhesive disk that can be placed directly over the trigger point.  It takes longer to relieve the trigger point, but if you put the patch on before going to bed then the discomfort will probably be gone by morning.

I love using magnets when doing massage and taking care of aches and pains.  I find that clients tense up if they feel pain, like in the usual way of dealing with muscle knots, so magnets work much better because there is no additional pain and they promote relaxation.

Wayne Woodworth
Magnetic Massage Therapist

Have you tried barley grass to handle your allergies?

I have had pollen allergies since I was just a year old and they got worse when I moved to Georgia, where the pollen is so thick in the Spring that everything turns a yellow-green color.  I quit taking any medication for my allergies when I was still young because every couple years I had to switch to something else as my body adapted to the medication and it became ineffective.  I have found that taking Nikken’s Jade GreenZymes barley grass supplement three times a day during pollen season almost completely takes care of it.  I have gone from having sinus congestion that lasts about 9 months a year to having clear sinuses all but maybe a few days a year.  It has been amazing.

In my training as a massage therapist I learned that a lot of our problems can be taken care of with food, and food is much safer than taking drugs.  Barley grass is one of nature’s perfect foods, along with blue green algae, so what better way to take care of your allergies.

Wayne Woodworth
Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant
Allergy free thanks to barley grass

Disclaimer: I am an Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant and massage therapist. None of my statements have been approved by either Nikken or the FDA. I do not diagnose conditions and I do not prescribe any product to treat a particular condition.

My first experience with Nikken was with the Ultra Kenko Pad.  A massage therapist friend invited us to a Wellness Home Preview and we were allowed to borrow the magnetic mattress pad for a week to see what we thought of it.  The short version of the story is that we ended up joining Nikken and highly recommend both the product and the business.

We put the magnetic pad on our bed and covered it over with the sheet  and settled in for the night under the far-infrared comforter.  Nobody told us to put our regular mattress pad over it too.  I wish they had because my first thought was that I was lying on a rock.  Firmness aside, I slept better than I had in years.  With the combination of the magnets, far-infrared, and negative ions everything on the bed just felt right.

Since we joined, Nikken has introduced the Kenko Air mattress which is an air mattress, similar to those number beds, with the Ultra Kenko Pad on top of it.  I tried one out once and it is very nice.  You can control the firmness of each side of the bed independently.  We don’t have one yet because our existing mattress is in great shape and there is no need to upgrade yet.

Wayne Woodworth
Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant
Magnetic sleeper

Disclaimer: I am an Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant and massage therapist. None of my statements have been approved by either Nikken or the FDA. I do not diagnose conditions and I do not prescribe any product to treat a particular condition. These are my opinions based on my experience with the Nikken sleep system.

We have had our Nikken Air Wellness Power 5 since we started with Nikken in 2006 and have really enjoyed the clean air and negative ions that it offers.  We have often heard how well plants respond to it and decided to see for ourselves.  My wife has a bamboo plant that has managed to survive for several years but never really did much.  We put it near our Nikken air filter and pretty much forgot about it until one day we noticed that it has grown up past the ceiling next to it (our living room is open to the second floor).  The plant is at least 4 feet tall.  Since that experiment has worked so well I decided to bring home a struggling plant from work to see how it does with the clean air and negative ions.

If plants do so well with the Air Wellness system, imagine how well our bodies respond to it.

Wayne Woodworth
Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant
Breathing easy thanks to Nikken

Disclaimer: I am an Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant and massage therapist.  None of my statements have been approved by either Nikken or the FDA.  I do not diagnose conditions and I do not prescribe any product to treat a particular condition.  These are my opinions based on my experience with Nikken’s products.

Do you know what Nikken Far-Infrared Technology is all about?

Yesterday I attended the quarterly Rhythm of Nikken event in my area and we were very fortunate to have Dave Balzer speak to us about some of the Nikken technologies.  Dave has had a long history with Nikken and is currently serving as the chairman of the new Scientific Advisory Board.  Needless to say, he knows a lot about the Nikken technologies and how they work.

Infrared energy is the frequency of magnetic waves just below the visible light spectrum and far-infrared waves are the waves at the lowest end of the infrared range.  Near-infrared is the energy used in heat lamps and mid-infrared is used in communication devices like TV remotes.  Neither of these penetrate our bodies very far.  Far-Infrared energy does penetrate our bodies bringing in nurturing heat along with it.  Far-Infrared is the energy behind the warmth we feel from the sun, even on cold winter days.

Nikken has many far-infrared products including the comforters in the Kenko sleep systems, the new travel comforter, the KenkoTherm wraps, and the new sport socks.

Wayne Woodworth
Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant
Comfortably warm under my far-infrared comforter

Disclaimer: I am an Independent Nikken Wellness Consultant and massage therapist.  None of my statements have been approved by either Nikken or the FDA.  I do not diagnose conditions and I do not prescribe any product to treat a particular condition.  These are my opinions based on staying warm on cold nights with only a light far-infrared comforter.