Le Journal

I can’t dance. Not even a little bit. But the terrible moves my friends mock are an antidote to the racing heart and quivering breath that arrive in my more anxious momentsThe first time I started dancing at home was a happy accident. I’d just had a terse conversation with an ex, and my body was reacting in its usual way: racing heart, quivering breath and trembling fingers. I needed to calm down. Looking around for quick fixes in my flat – my bed, some stale chocolate digestives and a packet of cigarettes – I settled on the kitchen radio, which had been humming faintly in the background all morning.Tuned to BBC Radio 6 Music, it was playing a disco track I didn’t recognise. But the beat was steady and intermingled with the sounds of tambourines, synths and drums. I turned up the volume, and then my body was moving: limbs swinging, feet tapping, hips wiggling. I continued into the next song, leaning into the feeling and becoming more animated to the sounds of another upbeat 70s track, imagining myself on a crowded, sweaty dancefloor. It was all very silly. But by the third song, my anxiety had melted away. I was smiling. And I felt more like myself again. Continue reading...

The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan is introducing something entirely new this Chanukah — and it’s unlike any holiday event the neighborhood has seen before. On The post An Immersive Chanukah Experience: The JCC Debuts “Glow,” a Candlelit Pool Concert appeared first on iLovetheUpperWestSide.com.

Our muscles, bones and organs are held together by a network of tissue that influences our every move. Is there a way we can use it to our advantage?Fascia, the connective tissue that holds together the body’s internal structure, really hasn’t spent all that long in the limelight. Anatomists have known about its existence since before the Hippocratic oath was a thing, but until the 1980s it was routinely tossed in the bin during human dissections, regarded as little more than the wrapping that gets in the way of studying everything else. Over the past few decades, though, our understanding of it has evolved and (arguably) overshot – now, there are plenty of personal trainers who will insist that you should be loosening it up with a foam roller, or even harnessing its magical elastic powers to jump higher and do more press-ups. But what’s it really doing – and is there a way you can actually take advantage of it?“The easiest way to describe fascia is to think about the structure of a tangerine,” says Natasha Kilian, a specialist in musculoskeletal physiotherapy at Pure Sports Medicine. “You’ve got the outer skin, and beneath that, the white pith that separates the segments and holds them together. Fascia works in a similar way: it’s a continuous, all-encompassing network that wraps around and connects everything in the body, from muscles and nerves to blood vessels and organs. It’s essentially the body’s internal wetsuit, keeping everything supported and integrated.” If you’ve ever carved a joint of meat, it’s the thin, silvery layer wrapped around the muscle, like clingfilm. Continue reading...

Plagued by congestion—largely caused by bikes parked or riding through the Sherman Square Pedestrian Plaza outside the McDonald’s area at 2049 Broadway, between West 70th and 71st Streets—and after back-and-forth discussions with the Department of Transportation to improve public safety, construction officially began on Friday, November 21, on the 71st Street bike corrals. The post Construction Begins on 71st Street Bike Corrals by Busy McDonald’s appeared first on iLovetheUpperWestSide.com.

Bright Horizons’ Columbus Circle location — already under intense scrutiny after three employees were indicted this summer for allegedly abusing toddlers — is now the subject of a newly revealed incident involving a cleaning solution mistakenly poured into a classroom water pitcher and served to children. The post Daycare Center Faces Scrutiny After Bleach Solution Mistakenly Served to Children appeared first on iLovetheUpperWestSide.com.