Meditations on Massage

Massage and Meditation

One Pointedness
Meditation will make you a better massage therapist. Through the powers of concentration developed by 'navel gazing' for hours and hours, there is an ability to pierce deeply into the very nature of a problem. At the very least, with concentration comes the ability to focus on the client and their tissue without wandering off to far away imaginary lands.

Pain over Pleasure
Massage relieves pain. Meditation overcomes pain. I prefer the latter. There is no avoiding pain but there can be an avoidance of states of disease and dysfunction. I prefer to use massage for helping improve a person's state of well being, not just removing their pain. To create a relationship with that is not based on avoidance and escape. Lets think of it as a continuum of sorts - To start, a person would receive a massage to relieve pain - but to become dependent on such an elixir is only a route to certain suffering and inevitable dissatisfaction. Perhaps, an introduction of learning to study one's pain via meditation and creating the awareness of the psychological nature of pain would be a useful byproduct of a massage treatment that I would design.

Solitary indulgences
Massage and Meditation can be very solitary practices. Massage performed on a person in whom you hope to create a sense of peace and relaxation does not lend itself well to idle chatter and gossip. And then too there is a task to be accomplished. One that is steeped in focus and concentration and the ability to see what's really going on under the surface. In meditation too, you try to see through the surface of the mind and find what lies within. All the vagaries of day to day life are just not worth obsessing over because they become meaningless right quick.


The combine effect
Massage and Meditation as treatment go together quite well. In a study published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine in 2005 by Mary Ann Liebert concluded that the combined effect of massage and meditation on quality of life of a group of late-stage disease patients was more beneficial than massage or meditation alone.

Through the eyes of a looking glass
Massage can be seen as a form of meditation. Can meditation be seen as a form of massage – Not really. A forum for reflection develops in the melding of the physical contact and the minds over inquisitive nature. What is actually happening here. Are there energy transfers and neural connections telekinteically being exchanged? Is there a fusing of matter, of two separate entities stripping though their separateness faster than a deep Cyriax friction. In dimensions unknown......???

Lineage
Stepping into shoes of healers of a tradition as primal as a mother's touch is a big deal. Reflect on responsibility and love and power and purpose. Meditate on effect and intention and purity. Breathe and Heal. Could there not be a desire to be meaningful and relevant yet at ease and desire-free. What paths have healer of past taken, what sacrifices made so that we today pave a road already so well beat. Are there assumptions that need decrying? A smouldering soup need stirring. Rest

How about summing up neuro in poetry

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

SenseMe

People always 'move' better after a massage due to sensory inputs/re-education to disconnected parts of their bodies

ChiroMeChiro

Most people getting of a chiro's table will feel good becuase of the autogenic inhibition effect.. A reflex that kicks in after an adjustment causing the muscles around the joint to relax.



A dynamic thrust starts a momentary myotactic stretch reflex even faster than a slow stretch, via the low-threshold stretch circuit, but, if delivered properly, a dynamic thrust will also excite the higher threshold Golgi tendon apparatus that initiates the inverse myotatic reflex to cause associated contracted muscle fibers to give way suddenly (clasp-knife reflex). By holding a finger near a colleague's contact hand while a dynamic adjustment is given to a patient, the quick contraction followed by relaxation of the underlying muscle can be sensed. This phenomenon, autogenic inhibition, has many applications in correcting muscular fixations and relaxing splinted muscles.

Be careful what door you walk thru

However, think of this...what is one of the first things you do after you bump your head or pinch a finger by accident? You probably rub it and it feels better, right? Could this be explained by the gate control theory? Well, rubbing your bumped head or pinched finger would activate non-nociceptive touch signals carried into the spinal cord by large nerve fibers. According to the theory, the activity in the large nerve fibers would activate the inhibitory interneuron that would then block the projection neuron and therefore block the pain.

The gate control theory of pain, put forward by Ronald Melzack (a Canadian psychologist) and Patrick David Wall (a British physician) in 1962,[1] and again in 1965,[2] is the idea that the perception of physical pain is not a direct result of activation of nociceptors, but instead is modulated by interaction between different neurons, both pain-transmitting and non-pain-transmitting. The theory asserts that activation of nerves that do not transmit pain signals can interfere with signals from pain fibers and inhibit an individual's perception of pain.

Gate control theory asserts that activation of nerves which do not transmit pain signals, called nonnociceptive fibers, can interfere with signals from pain fibers, thereby inhibiting pain. Afferent pain-receptive nerves, those that bring signals to the brain, comprise at least two kinds of fibers - a fast, relatively thick, myelinated "Aδ" fiber that carries messages quickly with intense pain, and a small, unmyelinated, slow "C" fiber that carries the longer-term throbbing and chronic pain. Large-diameter Aβ fibers are nonnociceptive (do not transmit pain stimuli) and inhibit the effects of firing by Aδ and C fibers.

The peripheral nervous system has centers at which pain stimuli can be regulated. Some areas in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord that are involved in receiving pain stimuli from Aδ and C fibers, called laminae, also receive input from Aβ fibers.[3] The nonnociceptive fibers indirectly inhibit the effects of the pain fibers, 'closing a gate' to the transmission of their stimuli.[3] In other parts of the laminae, pain fibers also inhibit the effects of nonnociceptive fibers, 'opening the gate'.[3]

Causes of Inflammation (besides Garo and Harper)

There are only two sources of inflammation: Trauma or an Antigen (could be a perceived antigen - hypersensitivity)

Oh my Felden Krais

In a presentation to the school, Susan Free discussed Somatics (movement education)and I felt that was one of the key components missing from our training.

She did some neat demos that increased the range of motion in lateral rotation of the spine, neck and head significantly.

Her philosophy was one of teaching the mind new ways of doing things so one can break free from patterns that are established in error.

It was certainly a 'moving' experience.

These also correlate with Michael's discussion of de-chunking and de-habituating a clients movements.

Check out these awesome videos - it will be worth it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igpJeOkgfzw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mquOoYA39o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mVjJuvS3xg&feature=related