Award-winning Osteopath Anisha Joshi sheds light on the importance of looking after our bodies

Award-winning Osteopath and Clinic Owner, Anisha Joshi uses her social platform to shed light and tips on how to prevent health problems by moving, stretching, and massaging the muscles and joints. Anisha’s holistic approach and expertise has led to her treating celebrities including musicians such as Professor Green and Rita Ora. Anisha’s fun and creative approach to educating others via her Instagram profile caught our attention. We had the opportunity to speak with Anisha as she shared her journey and how she has helped countless models and fitness professionals keep their bodies in optimum condition.

At this moment in time health and self-care is a big topic. As an Osteopath I would love to learn a bit more about how and why you started this journey?

I graduated in 2008 and since then I have just been very passionate about people looking after their bodies, spines and about raising awareness to younger peoples about looking after themselves. Especially as we live in a culture of trying to look good, I am seeing more young people come in with pain and injury due to training. In that time I bought a clinic when I was 24, and gradually built that up over the past 10 years. I now have two clinics and our aim is to make Osteopathy and body healthcare a bit more approachable and accessible. We look to educate others on this in a fun way without it being boring.

What type of things do you see with young patients? As many young people do not realise how their current lifestyle is likely to effect their body?

Something quite early on in my career, a young lady came in with neck pain and when you come into see an Osteopath you go through a consultation running through your medical case history. In consultation she broke down in tears and started to cry about her relationship and how she was quite anxious. I calmed her down and listened to her story and did a brief examination as we had run out of time. So after the examination, she got up off the cough and was like “wow thank you so much my neck pain feels so much better” and I had not even treated her.

It was at that moment early on in my career that I got really interested in the fact that that stress, anxiety, and mental health can manifest physically. And it was from that point I kept seeing it over and over again where I had to keep telling people I do not think you need me, as the pain they are dealing with mentally is impacting their body physically. This is one way people may not realise that they have neck or back pain and not realise it is not physical but rather anxiety.

There is this huge culture of Instagram and looking good there is a lot of people lifting heavy and working out from home. Working out and staying active is so important for your body and muscles, but people are not realising they are not aligned and they are predisposing themselves to getting serious injuries. I am seeing younger people in their late 20’s needing surgery for these things.

How do individuals decipher that physically something is just not right?

I like to use the example your body is like a car; our body is the most innovative machine that has been created. If you get a signal from your body it is not lying to you, it is telling you something. I always say imagine a back twinge, like the oil lamp flickering on the dashboard. It is your body saying hold on something is not right here, whether its because you need to stretch more or whether it is that you have actually got pelvic torsion your body is trying to tell you something. What people will notice is that oil lamp will flicker more and more but become more consistent. Essentially if you ignore it that oil lamp will stay on, and that is how I get my patients to think about. The oil lamp is not going to magically turn itself off, you will need to take it to a mechanic. The sad thing is if this were a real car, we are more likely to take our own car to a mechanic that we are own bodies to get it checked out. 

What kind of services do you provide?

Majority of people that come in will book-in a first assessment, we have massage therapy that works alongside what we do. The osteopaths are more medically qualified we are considered essential care, keyworkers for instance and do a 4-5 year medical degree. What people would be booking a first consultation which will give them the medical diagnosis to what they need. People usually when they are young and just getting checked out would need 2-3 treatment and then a check-up 2 twice a year. It is not something that is needed often, it is like going to the dentist.

It is important for young people to get that one-year check-in our lifestyles have changed so much over the years. Our bodies were made to live in caves and hunt for food and we now are all hunched over desks and our devices; our bodies were not designed to sit all day and work off our beds”. Because of this, therefore everyone needs preventative treatment.

What top tips do you have for young people during this time?

Continue to workout from home, ensure that your form is OK and try do regular stretching. When you are working from home try to use a glass rather than a water bottle, that way you are likely to get up and keep refilling. Or set a timer on your phone to get up and move around, people underestimate how much they move when they are working in the office. When you are working from home you could sit there for 12 hours and not keep, drink lots of water, keep moving and stretching.

Follow Anisha on Instagram to keep posted on her top tips to keeping your body healthy.