Health Benefits of Reflexology Massage

Video Transcript

"Let's talk a little bit about the modality of Reflexology. It is an alternative medicine treatment that (as far as I understand) people can use it as complimentary to medicine for whatever health issues they may be having. They can use this as a complimentary type of therapy along with what they are currently, what their doctor has been telling them to do. Yes. Yeah, it is very important whenever you are getting any sort of massage modality, to remember that a massage therapist of any kind doesn't diagnose or treat (or heal). But, there's just more and more and more research about how these types of therapies can holistically benefit or compliment things that your doctor is doing or things that you are already doing. Before any massage, you do want to let the massage therapist know any sort of medications you are taking, and illnesses you've got, whether they are chronic illnesses, you know, whether they are sudden injuries, or specific problems that you have physically. And check with a doctor, always, to make sure that whatever you are doing isn't going to contraindicate any sort of thing that your doctor is working on. But as a sort of healing process, they can be beneficial in huge amounts of ways; boosting immunity, promoting relaxation, promoting blood flow, increasing range of motion. The benefits really go on and on. And is there anyone that you can think of that should not get Reflexology? Like, if you are pregnant, or, no, actually I have seen more and more research about how massage can benefit everything from arthritis, multiple sclerosis, even. There's more research coming out about how massage can benefit cancer patients. Where as before, it was thought that cancer was, if you were getting chemo, you shouldn't get any sort of massage. And now they are really finding that it boosts immunity, it just has to be done in the right way and the massage therapist has to be fully informed as to what's going on with our client. So, for instance, in Reflexology, there are specific points where someone got a prenatal massage would want to avoid specific glands that activate hormones or that might induce early labor if someone is in the late stage of pregnancy. So, you know, the more information the client gives a massage therapist, the better they are able to help them target their specific needs. So Reflexology is basically a foot massage (from what I understand) that was developed in China, in Asia a couple of thousand years ago and it is targeted to the meridian points. Which, what are the meridian points? Let's talk about that. Well, Reflexology is sort of an extended and specified form of Shiatsu. So Shiatsu is a Japanese and Eastern massage therapy modality which deals with the flow of energy or "chi" through the body. And essentially, the meridians follow our main nerve and blood and cardiopulmonary centers; our aorta, our spine, our vena cava, all the main flow of lymph and blood, any sort of bodily function follow along these lines. So yeah, these practices have been around forever and Reflexology (targets those points) yeah, targets those points to the feet specifically. So any whole body Shiatsu massage will include Reflexology or acupressure. I love Reflexology! The best foot massage I ever got was in China. They come out with this huge, like, wooden bucket and you are on the edge of the bed and they do it up to your knees. It's really hard. What was the best foot massage you ever had? I had a really fascinating, great massage in Japan. It was really kind of funny because I didn't speak very good Japanese, and the massage therapist was blind. I think in Japan, it's very typical and has been for centuries that blind people go into massage because it's such a tactile profession so they don't need as much visual skill to do it. But if you don't speak the language and you have no verbal skills, you can't exactly point or show where you...So I was sitting there on the table and I had my little guidebook, and I was trying to flip through while I was lying down on my side. But, (that's funny), yeah, it was very awkward. I got very good at saying "more" or "less" or "higher" or "lower" and that was about it. But Eastern medicine uses massage in such a specific, healing, medicinal way (yes, they do it really hard). Yeah, and it's very...it has a very specific purpose. So when they are dealing with a specific nerve point that they can tell someone is blocked or someone has a complaint of a digestion problem, or a bladder problem or a kidney problem, or anything like that (they go for it, they are in there). Yeah. It's less about relaxation and more about healing."