It’s funny how most of us know very little about the place in which we live — our bodies. Chances are, if you are not in the health and well-being business, you don’t know much about the ins and outs of this miraculous structure and of its constant ability to adapt, regenerate and accommodate to the demands of your lifestyle. Today we’d like to change that — starting at the top and working our way down to the tips of your toes.
Changing Perspective
We’re often taught to break things to their smallest components to understand them, like the structures of the head and neck of the human body include the brain, bones, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, glands, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, and throat. We tend to think of our bodies (if we think of them at all!) as parts, rather than a whole. The purpose of this next series of blogs will be to help you think of your body as a whole. Coming to realize that the actions or lack of actions in one part of the body eventually affect the whole.
(W)holistic Awareness
As massage therapists, we work hard to help you to develop a more solid body awareness by asking questions about your pain, tightness or injuries to help you make the connection between your actions and your body’s reactions. When you come to us with a complaint we often ask things like, “What has changed since the last time?” These questions allow us to bring your awareness to the possible source of the new problem.
But sometimes what appears to be new problem may simply be your body deciding that it will no longer compensate for a certain straining or imbalancing behavior. For example, Esther once an issue with her neck going out in a certain way for years and her chiropractor kept asking what she might be doing to cause this particular issue but try as she might, she couldn’t figure it out. One day, by pure chance, she saw herself in the mirror while listening to a friend talk and she realized that she ALWAYS cocked her head to the right when listening! As soon as she changed the behavior and let the neck rest, the problem resolved itself.