Physiotherapy Consultations

College Physiotherapist Karita Saar Cullen is available for face-to-face consultations. You can ask for tips on how to stay healthy in your home offices, get some advice for relevant exercises for neck/back pain or sports injuries and get recommendations for apps, youtube videos and other online resources, all things physical health and mindfulness related.

To set up an appointment, please email: kcullen4@tcd.ie

Recommendations for physical and mental wellbeing

Karita is a physiotherapist and mindfulness facilitator. Here are her recommendations for physical and mental wellbeing.

Being Active

If you are working from home, here is a video how to set up your home office.
Break up sedentary periods: take every opportunity you can to stand up when possible. An ideal balance would be 25 min sitting/5 min standing – stand up from the chair when taking a sip of water, checking the phone or just reading something on the screen. Here are some short
stretches you can do: seated stretches; standing stretches.
Stay active : Getting 10,000 steps a day will most likely be a challenge when there is no need to leave the house but you can do it! A fun way to incorporate movement into the day is for example do lunges while waiting for the kettle to boil, jumping jacks when getting fresh air on the
balcony or garden – be creative!
Video call a friend and walk or exercise together (respecting physical distancing but still being sociable)
For exercise classes you can follow English fitness couch Jo Wicks who is giving daily P.E. lessons on YouTube but all of these exercises are suitable for any age! He has many useful videos for different levels of fitness and durations.
Yoga has evidenced based benefits for both physical and mental health. You might have your own personal practice or online favourites, but Yoga with Adriene has millions of followers and I can see why! Her 30 day challenge can be especially useful now when all days blend into each other.
Pilates lovers can tune into Jessica Valant (being a Pilates teacher myself I can recommend another physio doing what we are passionate about!)
7 minute workouts, built around the concept of high intensity circuit training using body weight is great for when time is limited!

Mindfulness

We can carry out all of the above Mindfully by being aware of our body, our breathing, our surroundings
and our thoughts about what is happening.

But if you would like to use some meditations to ground yourself in these unsteady times, then many people and centres are offering online resources and here are a few personal favourites:

Meditation with Jane Negrych on RTE
Daily live meditations from Ireland on Zoom
Free online meditation sessions from The Sanctuary

And from across the waters:

Ten percent happier corona virus sanity guide
https://jackkornfield.com/meditations/
https://oxfordmindfulness.org/online-sessions-podcasts/

Stay well and healthy,

Karita Saar Cullen
Chartered Physiotherapist, Pilates Instructor and Mindfulness facilitator