Maggie Downie, Author at Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

About Maggie Downie

Thank you for giving your time to stop and read my blog. I hope it encourages you to keep moving. Move and the body will be happier. And when you're moving you can hike, run, swim in Jell-O, race over non-Newtonian fluids, travel the world or build igloos--if that's your thing. If not, you can watch me do it. This is just a spot to try and feel good about life.

Once Grateful for Boys, Now Grateful for So Much More

One of the moments when I just couldn’t stop smiling.

Tomorrow at my family dinner we will go around the table and express our gratitude for something. I always cycle through the same three answers. I’m grateful that I can travel. I’m grateful for my health. And I’m grateful for my family and friends.

All true, but I thought it might be worthwhile to think outside the box and come up with something different this year. For help I grabbed a gratitude journal I started keeping in 1998. While my intentions are good now, and I mean to keep a gratitude journal, I tend to only use it a handful of times a year. But twenty years ago, I was reasonably consistent.

Here’s a sampling of things I appreciated in high school:

Words

Long Walks on Beautiful Days

Being able to Clock Distances in your Car

A Man Running Back and Forth between a Stop Sign and a Stop Ahead Sign

My Brother’s Huge Bear Hugs

Listening to Other People’s Memories from Before I was Alive

Seeing Nick S Because He is so Good Looking but I Have Never Talked to […]

Once Grateful for Boys, Now Grateful for So Much MoreMaggie Downie2017-10-25T14:24:29-04:00

The Power of Hypnosis

Not exactly how it works.

Once upon a time I loved sleep. It came so naturally. The second my head it the pillow, I’d be out. Actually, if it was after nine at night, I’d fall asleep standing up mid-conversation, mid-sentence. Eight hours later I’d awaken from a deep rest refreshed and excited about 5:30am.

I’ve struggled with sleep for close to four years since my thyroid went haywire. I’m hypothyroid and normally that means I should sleep ten hours a day and never feel rested. Instead, I only get four to six hours of sporadic sleep and never feel rested. For the most part, I just deal with being sleep deprived. Once you’re used to it, it’s actually amazing what you can still do, to a point.

At times I have moments of concern. I read an article reiterating all the things you try not to think about: sleep is when the body heals, lack of sleep increases your chance of gaining weight and making poor food choices, if you don’t sleep you’ll probably get Alzheimer’s. Basically, this sleep thing I seem to have no control of is […]

The Power of HypnosisMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00

Plank Story: A Scarlet Macaw for Halloween

Pirate and a Scarlet Macaw, well, maybe.

I’d only left three days to plan my Halloween costume this year. So on a whim I decided Matt could be a pirate—a costume we basically had—and I could be a parrot. In my mind I was going to be a beautiful parrot, red like a scarlet macaw. I hunted on Pinterest for easy ways to transform myself into the spectacular bird.

Then I placed an order on amazon for red, orange, yellow and aqua boas (these would be my wings and feathers); a red bird mask and beak (the don’t sell parrot beaks); a rainbow-colored feather wig and a red unitard. I had my doubts about the unitard as any sane person should, but I figured I could pull it off with everything else for one night.

All the costume parts arrived the day of the party with little time for adjustments. I attempted to get myself into the unitard, and I can’t quite express how bad it was. It was tight, shiny and somehow didn’t fit anywhere. Important parts couldn’t fit in it, my back didn’t even make […]

Plank Story: A Scarlet Macaw for HalloweenMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00

Wiggle Your Tail Bone Because You Can

Did you know that you can move your tail bone just like you can move all your vertebra? At least you should be able to, but to feel it you may have to do a little digging. The best place to try it is in the shower. Next time you take a shower, find your tailbone with your finger. You don’t actually have to go too deep into any crevices to find it. When I was in China and getting a massage, the therapist rubbed my tailbone. That was shocking and unwelcomed, but when you are searching for your own it’s not that invasive.

Once you find it, by engaging your pelvic floor (think do a Kegel) you should be able to feel it wiggle just a little bit. Think of the range of motion you can get from the first joint of your pointer finger. It’s not a big movement, but you should feel something.

The tailbone is really the last bone of your spine. If something in the body is meant to have mobility, we want to keep it mobile. Since everything is connected, if your pelvic floor is too tight or too slack that effects the positioning of the […]

Wiggle Your Tail Bone Because You CanMaggie Downie2018-02-14T15:33:38-05:00

Movement Beats Polio

My Grandma inside the igloo!

My grandma contracted polio when she was nine. She was so sick her mother had to push her in a baby carriage to walk her to the hospital. She was embarrassed and mad at her mom because she was nine and didn’t belong in a baby carriage. No one else in the Waterbury area had been diagnosed with polio so at first the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Before long there was an entire ward of children with polio.

For six month, my grandma was strapped to a wooden plank to immobilize her. It was the early thirties. The hospitals didn’t have air conditioning and she talks about how hot it could get in the room she shared with a group of polio-infected children. Those that died were wheeled out. One of her best memories from her time in the hospital was on summer Saturday nights when the nurses would wheel patients who were well enough out onto a patio for fresh air. The nurses would turn on music and dance.

When it was time to go home the doctor told her mother […]

Movement Beats PolioMaggie Downie2017-10-25T15:49:42-04:00

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