Retraining Your Body

Hey y’all, 

To recap my treatment process, the client shares their life updates while I take note of their repetitive movement, posture, and environmental stressors they’ve shared. Once they are on the massage table, I can palpate what joints have more mobility, muscles that are overused, or adhesions within the soft tissue (connective tissue sticking to each other), and can introduce my touch with gentle movements to their nervous system. This is my favorite part of a massage session which is deactivating and retraining the nervous system through movement, heat, aromatherapy, and breathwork.

For example, that movement can be rocking the body side to side. Rocking had a soothing effect. In one study published in the journal Current Biology, it is posited that “the sensory stimulation associated with a swinging motion exerts a synchronizing action in the brain that reinforces endogenous sleep rhythms,” which may explain why rocking induces that relaxed feeling.

Once the body is warmed up, similar to working out, I add in aromatherapy. My favorite customized blend is ginger and bergamot with notes of black pepper, lime, and oakmoss. The essential oils used in this practice trigger messages to be sent to your brain's limbic system, which controls your emotions and memory.

Whenever I'm working deeper or notice a client is emotionally holding their body consciously or unconsciously, we’ll collectively take deep belly breaths together for a count of three to allow the body to relax into the work. Belly breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which runs from the head down the neck, through the chest, and to the colon. This activates your relaxation response, reducing your heart rate and blood pressure and lowering stress levels.

Lastly, I like to seal the work in that region and take the client to a deeper state of rest and recovery with hot stones. It helps increase blood flow to the affected area and also reduces muscle spasms and increase flexibility and range of motion.

Whenever I use these four concepts together or separately, the client's body begins the process of retraining new and current neural pathways. To me, it's important to educate my clients on how to prolong their massage by giving them "homework." Yep, you read it right, I give out homework! More on this next week. :)

Cheers, Tiana

PS- Can't find an appointment? Send us an email to info@indigomovement.com or text us at 206-395-1136 with your preferred day, time frame, session length, and best contact method, and we'll be in touch ASAP when things change - which they always do.