Receiving a Massage & Body Therapy . . .
1) Give yourself permission to receive.
We spend so much time doing for
others that we don’t allow ourselves to receive. Let yourself relax
completely and enjoy being given to.
2) Let the therapist do the work.
For example, when the therapist
raises your arm, don’t assist. If you find yourself helping, just
recognize this as a form of tension and allow your arm to be as relaxed as
you could ever imagine it.
3) Allow yourself to breathe deeply.
One of the first responses to stress is to restrict your breathing. Deeper breathing will encourage greater relaxation. As a therapist of many therapies, I can show you ways to enhance this process.
4) Focus your attention on internal processes.
You might be amazed at the
sensations you feel or the thoughts that come to mind. One’s greatest
insights often come from quiet, stillness, and deep relaxation.
5) Monitor the changes within you.
After I finish with your left arm
or left leg, compare it to the right arm or right leg. Sense the changes
you feel. Allow your body to memorize how relaxation feels. This is
extremely important. In order for you to cue your body to relax, you must
give it sensory-specific information. A vague term like "relax"
has no real meaning compared to specific instructions such as heaviness,
warmth, softness or visual images of your arm floating like a piece of
driftwood on a still mountain lake. I believe this knowledge can make a
real difference in your tension level between
visits.
Communication
. . .
1) Ask questions!
I appreciate being able to share my knowledge with you.
2) Define your needs.
Think about what results you would like from your session today. Would you like the session to be quiet and relaxing, to have specific areas on your body worked on, the session to be to be invigorated and revitalized? The clearer your goals are, the more efficient I can be in helping you attain them.
3) Give feedback.
I really appreciate any preferences you can share with me. Some people like deeper work, others more gentle. Some clients like to talk, and others do not. If you would prefer a different kind of approach than I am doing, tell me. If you would like more attention given to an area, share that so I can concentrate on what is important to you. Don’t be bashful!
4) Set a game plan.
If you have specific areas or
problems that will need attention, plan on 5-10 sessions to give me a
chance to make a difference.
Physical Discomfort . . .
If the reason you came to visit the Body Therapy
Center was the relief of specific pain, the plan of therapy will be a bit
different. I want you to know why and how I will approach this, as you are
a partner in this therapy, and you must participate to make it work.
1) What is your pain
threshold?
In order to understand my approach, you need to understand the nature of pain and how body therapy can influence it. If you can imagine that 0 represents no pain, and 5 is the pain threshold, then 7 would be quite painful or tender.
When a muscle is tender, it may be at a level of 6. It is tender to the touch and quite achy. When I press on this muscle, the level of the pain will increase slightly with the stimulation of the touch. After several seconds, the muscle will quiet a bit and will become less tender. If this is done two or three times in the session, you may be pain free when you leave the office. Your level of pain or tenderness will be just under 5; anything up to a 4.9 will not feel painful to you.
2) What is your level of discomfort before and after your session?
While you are presently not feeling any pain, you are may be just .3 points away from discomfort. Picking up a child, a slip in the tub, or reaching around into the back seat of your car may send you right back into pain. Any activity, even strong emotions, stimulates the brain to increase muscle tonus.
My goal in massage and body therapy must then be to help you to decrease this scale so that you can handle stress and still bounce back. If you are to close to the threshold, a little bit of stress puts you over the edge.
At the end of the second session, your level might be 3.8 or so. At the end of the third session, a level of 3.1 will give you a cushion of almost two points before you hit a 5 and trigger the sensation of pain.
Do you see that just decreasing the pain is not quite enough? You may not feel it, but it may be lurking just underneath the surface. If you wait too long in between sessions, I may always be leaving you with a 4.9__in other words a pain waiting to happen. Worse yet, you may feel that body therapy only gives temporary relief. What is the correct spacing? How can you make real progress?
Tension accumulation . . .
1) General Tension Level is usually an 8 on a scale
of 1 to 10.
Climbing the tension ladder to an 8 means that a stimulus of 2 will send you into pain and spasm. With massage and body therapy, your general tension level will drop dramatically thereby increasing your ability to handle stress.
Whatever your general tension is, that level is registered as "normal." Each new stress, injury, or trauma pushes your level slightly upward. This tension accumulates at a rate that is barely noticeable, until one day you hit 10, the level of pain and spasm. After your session at the Body Therapy Center, a new lower level of general tension will be set and accepted as "normal." You will notice a greater capacity to deal with the stresses in your life simply because you are not burdened with the residual effects of stress from the past.
After your session: The immediate responses to watch for are . .
1) Your level of
fatigue
Sometimes people feel a little tired after a session. There are two reasons for this, one mechanical and the other emotional. Mechanically, your body is flushing all the tissue toxins that the massage loosened up. Emotionally, people often realize how stressed they really were!
2) The amount of soreness in your body
If there have been a lot of tissue toxins in an area, you may feel soreness as it leaves your body. This can be a mild general soreness of very specific tenderness lasting for up to two days. Soreness most often happens after the first visit and is an indication of how much lactic acid had accumulated and was irritating the tissue in the first place.
3) Changes in your perception
Do you notice the relaxation in your body after a session at the Body Therapy Center? How specifically do you notice those changes? Does your body feel differently as you are walking and using it? Are you aware of changes in your mental state? The more clearly you recognize these changes, the easier it will be to remind your body what relaxation is. In this way a session at the Body Therapy Center becomes educational and the benefits will last for a long time.
4) The duration of your therapy’s benefits
For how long do you notice that these benefits last? Remember that sometimes your body just accepts this new relaxed state as normal. Learning to be aware of your own personal signs of accumulated stress can help you judge how often and when to receive a session.
When should I return?
A guide to scheduling your next session at the body therapy center
1) How often is enough?
When should I come for my next session? How do I know when I need massage and body therapy? These are very commonly asked questions here at the Body Therapy Center. These questions are not easy to answer, but there is a way for you to decide how often to visit my office. Spacing is often the key to success in the therapy program, and I am happy to provide you with input to help you with this decision.
2) What are your goals and purposes!
First you must be clear on why you are seeing me and what you want out of massage and body therapy. Are you coming to relax completely and relieve mental stress? Are you suffering a specific physical complaint that is bothering you on a day-to-day basis? Different goals require different approaches. Once you have defined yours, the approach will be clear.
3) Can I learn to relax?
Yes! Learning to relax completely is a very attainable goal through massage and body therapy. I suggest that you come in for two to three sessions that are spaced fairly close together. I might suggest three sessions over a two-week period.
As you learn what relaxation feels like on the table, you will be more adept at transferring that feeling to your daily life. In order to calm yourself, you need to know what calm feels like. This work will give you that feeling of peace and quiet in very powerful way. Please look on the next page . . .
Optimum spacing of appointments
. . .
1) Session #1.
Your pain is active and intensive; it responds well to this 1st massage and body therapy session.
2) Session #2.
Your second visit takes place on the fourth or fifth day, before the pain has a chance to increase again. Light activity at home and work is possible, but keep in mind that too much activity easily will send you back into pain.
3) Session #3.
When you experience an increase in mobility and pain is no longer a hindrance to your activities. You have been able to do some moderate activity without any problems. Your level of tension is somewhere around 2.8 - 3.0, giving you a cushion with which to handle stress. Not only are you pain free, but you are stable!
4) Session #4.
Maintenance always! If you lead a stressful life, massage is very helpful when you use it for maintaining your stress level.
There are a few principles that I want you to consider during therapy . . .
1) Nutrition.
There is an excellent reason people need nutrition during the healing process. When people have pain, especially chronic pain, a division of the nervous system, called the sympathetic division, takes over.
When the "fight or flight" division becomes over stimulated, one of the major things that occurs is that the digestive system shuts down. It is very difficult to shift out of pain when the body is not absorbing necessary nutrition. You’ll want to make the effort to get adequate vitamins & minerals through your diet.
Caffeine and sugar are classified as neuromuscular stimulants. They tend to stimulate__in many cases over stimulate__the nervous system. It is suggested that these products be considered by you, & that you reduce, and preferably eliminate artificial sweets from your diet.
2) Mental and emotional well being.
Adequate rest and sleep are also recommended.
3) Education.
This is a valuable tool for the recovery process with your sessions. I make available, to all my clients an educational video library, which you are welcome to view anytime at your convenience. Or if you prefer, videos may be checked out by you for 1 week for home viewing. There is no charge for this service.
Thank you, I hope that this information is what you were seeking. Please contact me directly if you have any other questions about massage & body therapies or the BODY THERAPY CENTER @ 355-8001.
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