By Elizabeth Cloutman
Gaya Wellness Center offers chiropractic care, fitness, massage and nutrition
Your life is hectic and stressful. You find you don’t get enough exercise or eat as healthfully as you should. Now your body is starting to reflect your neglect with symptoms of fatigue, body aches, stiffness and muscle tension.
Dikla Oren, a licensed chiropractor as well as an experienced yoga instructor, believes the staff at Gaya Wellness Center can help you.
The Gaya Wellness Center offers chiropractic care, massage therapy, nutritional advice and supplements, as well as “body-nurturing” fitness classes.
Oren said she bases her patient care on what she called the triad of health: the function of the body structure, body chemistry and the mind.
A native of Israel, has worked as a chiropractor for the past six years, after earning her degree at the Palmer School of Chiropractic. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education and has taught yoga for the past 18 years.
Each new patient at the center fills out an extensive health questionnaire to help Oren and her staff individualize a program of care. Oren first does a chiropractic evaluation.
In her evaluation, Oren checks the function of the spine and other joints. “We teach a lot about posture,” Oren said. “There often needs to be a change in the workstation, or in the case of young mothers, work on lifting and carrying.”
Oren is certified in “CranioSacral therapy,” a technique developed about 25 years ago by John Upledger, an osteopathic physician and researcher. According to information from the Upledger Institute, a CranioSacral therapy practitioner uses “a light touch to test for restrictions on the flow of cerebrospinal fluid in the skull, sacrum and coccyx … The therapist’s light touch or approach assists the hydraulic forces inherent in the craniosacral system… (and) helps alleviate a range of illness, pain and dysfunction.”
Once Oren has corrected structural function, the patient can join small classes (10 or fewer students) that combine yoga, stretching, breathing, meditation and movement to promote relaxation, strengthening and flexibility. “We guide them so they know how to work out when they go to the gym,” she said.
Isaac Oren, Dikla’s life partner is the personal trainer who leads these classes. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education, as well as master’s degrees in both biomechanics and computer science.
Etan Gelber, a fourth-year sports medicine student at San Jose State offers several kinds of massage therapy at the center to help patients relieve body discomfort: deep-tissue, sports, Thai and tension relief.
Oren said the center also emphasizes the importance of good nutrition to her patients’ overall health. Dietician Dalia Perelman evaluates patients with special nutritional needs, such as those with diabetes or high cholesterol. “She’ll even go grocery-shopping with these people if they need assistance,” Oren said.
Oren supplies advice on the nutritional supplements. “We carry only the highest quality and fit them to patients’ needs,” she said.
Gaya Wellness Center also features a lending library and periodic workshops on alternative health. Michaela Boldy, a certified aromatherapy practitioner, is set to lead a workshop, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., May 5 at the center, which is located in the Los Altos Courtyard, 851 Fremont Ave., Suite 112. Cost is $60 before May 5, $70 the day of the event. Bring a friend, Oren said, and receive a $10 discount.
Oren noted Gaya Wellness Center focuses on personalized service to support a patient’s overall well-being and will refer patients to physicians and alternative practitioners as needed. “We try to go back to the old model of the general practitioner, who would really know the families, tend to their needs, and be aware of what goes on in (patients’) lives,” Oren said.
For more information about the Gaya Wellness Center, appointments or workshop reservations, call 917-9094.
