Body Charge Inc. , one of the busiest vendors for chair massage has moved into an office in Manhattan. “This will assure us of the quality of the therapists that we are sending out”, Paul Guditis, President and CEO of Body Charge stated. Guditis, a firm believer in quality, not quantity, said that he would rather work with a smaller team of busy professionals that are tried and true, than to work with referrals from other therapists. “Face to face interviews are the only way to go. You can only tell so much from a resume, but after that, you need to test the therapists’ skill level. Some got it , and some don’t.”
The new local address is: 347 5th ave #1402-14 New York, NY 10016 646.205.8018
Written by Kelle Walsh from Massage Magazine
Chair Massage Helps Desk-Bound Workers
A stiff neck. Aching wrists. Shoulders that feel as if someone folded them up. Anyone who has ever sat behind a desk all day will recognize the symptoms of workplace fatigue.
According to David Palmer, co-developer of the first massage chair and founder of the TouchPro Institute in San Francisco, most office-related physical symptoms can be attributed to loss of circulation. Tight muscles caused by stress and sitting behind a desk all day, especially at a work station that is not ergonomically designed, can impede blood and lymph flow through the body. The result is mental fogginess, decreased energy and susceptibility to repetitive stress injuries, like carpal tunnel syndrome.
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“Enhancing circulation will enable the body’s self-healing mechanisms”
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Chair massage counters the circulatory problems inherent with office work—and provide a appreciated break for employees. Sitting in a massage chair opens up the back muscles, relieves strain on the neck and provides a gentle respite for eyes usually glued to a computer monitor. Even 15 minutes of massage to the neck, back, arms and hands can increase circulation, returning energy levels and helping keep the body injury free.
“When chair massage is used preventively, if you have problems it allows you to maintain a homeostatic balance that prevents the little problems from getting worse,” Palmer said.
Yoga for Cancer Patients Provides Benefits of Sleep, VitalityMay 21, 2010, 12:03 AM EDT
By Tom Randall
May 21 (Bloomberg) — Touch toes. Downward dog. Breathe. It’s a yoga routine that cancer doctors have prescribed for years without evidence it would do much good. Now the biggest ever scientific study of yoga finds their instincts were right.
While yoga doesn’t cure the disease, its stretching and breathing exercises did improve sleep, reduce dependence on sedatives and help cancer patients resume the routine activities of everyday life, according to a 410-participant study being highlighted at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago next month.
Health insurers and government programs don’t pay for yoga even as mounting evidence from dozens of smaller studies show benefits for treating chronic disease. The research and more than $5 million in additional tests funded this year by the National Institutes of Health may convince skeptical doctors and provide scientific evidence to allow coverage.
“Clinicians should now feel pretty comfortable prescribing gentle Hatha yoga or restorative yoga for their patients,” said Karen Mustian, lead author of the study and assistant professor in the department of radiation oncology and preventive medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “The data from this study is one of the first steps in the direction toward insurance coverage, but we’re not there yet.”
Doctors at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York aren’t waiting for more studies to start prescribing yoga. The hospital is one of the few facilities in the country to offer personal yoga therapy instruction for all of its sickest cancer patients.
Fighting Leukemia
David Goldberg, a 30-year-old computer programmer and recreational athlete, learned earlier this month that he has leukemia. The cancer cut short his five-mile runs and pick-up basketball games even before his diagnosis. Goldberg hadn’t considered yoga until checking into Beth Israel’s emergency department a few weeks ago and learning of his disease.
“I was certainly a little skeptical, but so far it’s been very helpful in relaxing me, getting me in a good state of mind,” Goldberg said before a 20-minute lesson in his hospital room. His instructor wears a mask to protect Goldberg, whose immune system has been weakened by five rounds of chemotherapy. “I’m hooked up to a machine, so I can’t totally forget that I have this. For me, it’s just an amazing experience to feel where my body is and what I’m experiencing.”
Cancer Meeting Highlight
The yoga study released yesterday by the cancer group is one of more than 4,500 reports showcased at this year’s meeting of 30,000 oncologists. Doctors have been especially interested in yoga’s muscle-toning stretches and meditative breathing, which practitioners say clears the mental fog of chemotherapy and the chronic fatigue that plagues some survivors for years.
In the Rochester study, about 8 out of 10 cancer survivors reported significant sleep impairment that affected their lives before the study. Half of the patients were assigned to yoga classes twice a week for one month. By the end of the trial, 31 percent of yoga patients no longer had the sleep disruptions, twice the recovery rate of patients who didn’t take classes.
Yoga practitioners also reported a 42 percent reduction in fatigue, compared with a 12 percent reduction for the control group. Yoga users decreased the use of sleep medication by 21 percent, while the control group actually increased reliance on sleeping drugs by 5 percent.
Learning More
Scientists still don’t know exactly what makes yoga work, said Lorenzo Cohen, professor of behavioral science and cancer prevention at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Cohen and his research group were awarded a $4.5 million U.S. grant this year for the biggest yoga and meditation study. His research will compare yoga to meditation and to stretching and will analyze economic benefits from increased productivity at work.
“Once we can show an economic impact, you’ll start to see changes,” Cohen said in an interview in New York. “Companies want to provide services that keep their employees healthy and productive.
“The concept that the brain can change if you put it into different states is a whole new wonderful science that’s emerging,” Cohen said.
Yoga began in India as a combination of physical and mental exercises. Historians have traced its roots back thousands of years to references in Buddhist and Hindu texts. In Western practices, muscle-stretching poses are accompanied by meditative breathing exercises. About 15.8 million Americans practiced yoga in 2008, according to a study commissioned by Yoga Journal.
The health benefits of yoga have been explored in scores of smaller studies looking at everything from weight loss to depression. Previous studies were too small to be considered definitive, and they are difficult to compare because most of them use differing definitions for just what “yoga” is.
Skepticism at First
“Ten years ago, there was almost complete skepticism from oncologists, but now most of them are coming around” said Woodson Merrell, chairman of the department of integrative medicine at Beth Israel. Merrell’s center is completing its own studies comparing patient improvements before and after the hospital’s holistic cancer floor was finished in March 2009.
Beth Israel’s yoga program was developed with celebrity instructor Rodney Yee and the Urban Zen Foundation set up by fashion designer Donna Karan, whose husband died of lung cancer. The hospital’s cancer floor also offers acupuncture, aromatherapy, a meditation room called the “Sanctuary” and massage chairs for patients and visitors.
Integrating Mind, Body
“We’re not talking about using a Ouija board and using fern leaves instead of chemotherapy,” Merrell said. “We’re talking about relaxation techniques to integrate the mind and body — instead of feeling disconnected from this cancer that’s in you, to feel that you’re a whole human being and you’re going on this path toward healing.”
For Goldberg’s fight against leukemia, yoga is a series of slow, gentle stretches, beginning with his feet and ending in his shoulders. The reclining poses are followed by guided breathing instructions that encourage him to let go of the sounds of the hospital and to focus on his thoughts and the sensations of his body.
After his session, Goldberg told his instructor that a headache that had been bothering him during a visit with his family had disappeared and his outlook on the world was little bit brighter than before. His doctors said his positive attitude is a strong medicine and his prognosis for recovery is good.
–Editors: Angela Zimm, Bruce Rule
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net.
Body Charge Corporate Headquarters is located in Studio City, California. We provide corporate seated chair massage for the Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Our seated office massages help relax your employees and rewards them for a job well done.
We can mobilize a team quickly for you here, and have been working in Los Angeles for over 12 years, with many local businesses and entertainment companies as our references. Corporate on-site massage and reflexology are our specialties with a well-trained, professional staff.
The Body Charge Team is a group of therapists that are trained in stress reduction techniques designed specifically for office settings. With massage, iPod music and aromatherapy, the team creates an atmosphere that is conducive to relaxation, while the therapist performs on site seated massage.
Companies such as Legal Zoom.com, J2 Global Communications, DaVita Dialysis, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, TBWA Chiat/Day Advertising, Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt, Fandango, are all companies that are based in LA and we would be happy to offer references from companies in the area.
Please give us a call today at 818-986-9019, for 24/7 on- call service.
Body Charge has been leading the way in the business of on-site chair massages for events and organizations since 1995. We have accumulated the experience and expertise that allows us to give the best corporate chair massages in the industry. We believe experience can be a teacher. With Body Charge, we have 14 years in which we evolved into a top rated company. Seated massage is no longer a luxury now, but a necessary service to keep your staff sharp relaxed and sharp.
We grow and evolve every year. We effort at becoming the best choice for on-site chair massages in the industry. Our clientele repeat clients that tell others about us. We believe this doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through our continually and progressive efforts to enrich our clients’ lives with healthy and effective chair massages.
Get the benefits of chair massages at your office or event today!
Our chair massage therapists are not beginners just coming out of school. We have a strong group of qualified and experienced seated massage therapists that truly hit the mark. We provide the best corporate chair massage in the city because our staff of therapists are at a level that is above and beyond the average. Our clients tell us that our therapists “get it.”
We realize that as an on-site chair massage company, we are only as good as our therapists. So, we put great effort into finding, hiring and training the very finest available. Our regional managers diligently screen each therapist for every city that we work. We truly put great effort into finding you the very finest chair massage therapist available.
More about our massage therapists here
Body Charge helping students chill out for USC Final Exams 2010
About Body Charge, Inc.
Body Charge has on-site chair massage therapists nationwide. We have been a pioneer in the office and event chair massage business over the last decade and employ quality massage therapists nationwide.
On-Site, seated chair massages recharge your employees and provide an excellent employee benefit for both employer and employee. Our mobile chair massage therapists are located in several major cities around the US. We have seated chair massage therapists in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Orlando among many other cities. Please contact our offices to find out about your location too. More than likely, we have massage therapists available.
Call Body Charge today — (800) 296-8634
We’ve been providing chair massages at offices and events for 14 years. This gives us quality experience that now delivers truly relaxing and healthy chair massages.
We are one of the pioneers of on-site chair massages. Our customers regard us as the premier chair masssage company. We’ve been flattered to see competitors enter the marketplace that attempt to copy our styles and approaches. Yet, our customers will tell you that we are the best. Los Angeles to New York, we can staff the best office and event massages.
