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Clémence Dieryck

I'm a bilingual yoga teacher who helps people who sit a lot gain mobility, move without pain and reduce their stress.

Suffering From a Herniated Disc? - Huffman Spine Clinic - Lumbar Disc  Herniation
Featured Post

Herniated disc: what your back actually needs

When someone gets a herniated/slipped disc diagnosis, the instinct is almost always to stop moving, be careful and wait for it to pass. I get it, the last thing we want is to make it worse. But it's also exactly what we shouldn't do. When the balance in a region of the spine is disrupted, the surrounding muscles compensate. They have to work harder, so they fatigue and become irritated. But also, your nervous system is on high alert. The whole area has become flagged as a threat. And if we...

A few weeks ago, I talked about persistent pain that doesn't seem to have a clear explanation. The tests that show nothing, the doctors who sound increasingly skeptical... and us, wondering if we are not getting mad? There's something else I'd like you to know about that. We now know that pain isn't a direct readout of damage in our body, but a decision our brain makes. Your brain is constantly gathering information. The state of your tissues, yes, but also your emotional state, your sense of...

a little girl is looking out of a window with her hands up and asking can i come inside .

I was recently asked this very astute question. Why astute? Because the answer is fairly counter-intuitive, which allows me to dispell a very common myth. The short answer is: not really... It's necessary to stretch to become more flexible, but in order to see real progress, it's a little more complicated than that. And that's because flexibility isn't primarily a muscle issue, but a nervous system issue. "Again with her bloody nervous system??" Hey! Don't shoot the messenger! According to a...

You had a routine, and it was working pretty well. And then something changed in your life. A move, a new job, a baby, a separation. And the habits you had built simply fell apart. Now, when you look back at what you used to do, you think: I'll never get back to that. It's a common situation for my clients (and soon for me as well I'm sure 😁) It's disheartening, for sure, but I still have good news. It's not a willpower problem, you're not lazy. It's very, very normal. Our habits are neural...

Normal X-rays. Normal scans. Normal blood tests. And yet you're in pain. In a specific place, here or there, sometimes all over... And it can last for months, even years. You've seen specialists, done all the tests, and every time you get the same answer: we can't find anything. If that's ever been your experience, let me be so clear: "We can't find anything" doesn't mean it's imaginary. It doesn't mean you're exaggerating. And it definitely doesn't mean nothing can be done. Our understanding...

So, two weeks ago I went on a ski trip for the first time in my life. I knew it would be hard to learn how to ski at nearly 40, but what I underestimated was the FEAR. The fear of falling itself, but also the fear of falling down the mountain, the fear of losing control of my speed, the fear of falling again where I’ve already fallen. I’m a big scaredy-cat in general, and that REALLY tested me! But I did it, I cried a lot, I learned a lot, I had a horrible time and a wonderful time. And I...

You go to bed at a decent time, you exercise, you take magnesium... You tick all the boxes, yet a few times a week, you wake up too early and your brain immediately starts racing. You go over what you have to do that day, start questioning everything, replay old conversations, panic about *gestures broadly at everything* I've definitely never been there, can't relate at all I might know what's happening here, though. After 6 to 7 hours of sleep, the biological pressure that keeps you asleep...

Do you consider yourself stressed? Most people I work with say no, or "not really". Yet their bodies tell a slightly different story 😬 We have a very specific image of stress: the heart racing, the palms sweating, the knot in our stomach. But that's acute stress, the kind we recognise easily. Chronic stress is far more subtle. It builds so gradually that you stop noticing it. You get used to it (like the story of the frog being slowly boiled alive) and it becomes your new normal. Your body,...

I want to talk about fatigue today. It's something we all experience, yet we don't fully understand it. Even from a scientific standpoint, there's still a lot of ongoing research and competing theories. Here's one that recently blew my mind. The widespread belief is that we become physically tired when we reach our muscular limits. The muscles run out of oxygen, or start to suffer damage from the build-up of waste products like lactic acid (if you have ever held a Warrior 2 for over one...

Sooo... How many yoga or gym routines have you tried? I've done it all. I committed to a new routine I saw on Instagram. And I managed... what, four days? Before I had to travel, had an early meeting, or let's be honest... just couldn't be arsed to get out of bed. And then I thought: "The problem is me. I lack discipline. If I were more motivated, I'd manage it." Nope. I don't think that anymore. The problem is that I was trying to shoehorn a random routine into my life. If you've ever been...