Harbord Massage Therapy & Educational Centre

Massage

Massage Therapy and Holistic Health
Myofascial Release (Deep Massage)
Chronic Pain and Massage Therapy

Massage Therapy and Holistic Health

Health care is changing. Today we witness a re-envisioning of attitudes toward health care. The term that describes this new health is "holistic," taken from the Greek "holos" having to do with "totality". This suggests a person's health is organized and structured as a whole; the structure of health is hierarchical comprised of sub-totalities –cell, human organism, family, class, culture. These components constitute one's relationship to feeling healthy. Rather than being unchangeable, health undergoes a continuous process of transformation as well as transcendence.

Health’s organization does not always imply harmonious co-operation of sub-totalities. Conflicts among them are a driving force of change, transformation, and transcendence. This view is based on a dialectical assumption that an integrated whole is greater than the sum of its parts and in a constant state of process.

In this holistic view, massage therapists see sickness in relation to the organism as a whole. From the perspective of four fundamental modes of sensemaking that have evolved over the course of human history, Health is considered to be an optimum balance of somatic, narrative, scientific, and linguistic sensemaking. Distress can result when this balance becomes upset. Contextualized in one's relationship to biology and culture, these modes cannot be fragmented. They imply each other.

The holistic view is the polar opposite of current medical theory and practice. Specialists fragment the person with an overuse of scientific sensemaking with each part of the body viewed and treated as separate from the rest of the person. This often creates a situation in which a person becomes dependent upon physicians and drugs to maintain health.

A belief that our sickness and health are too complicated for us to understand. An array of various specialists with detailed knowledge can cure us. Any imbalance in our health is seen as sufficient cause to see a physician. Overtaxed emergency wards and waiting rooms suggest we “follow the doctors orders” without active participation taking medication as prescribed. This approach to medicine effectively removes people from taking responsibility for their sickness or health. A view of health care characterized by an over determined use of scientific methodology must be restructured to assist individuals to become active participants in their own health care issues through a mindfulness of these four ways of making sense of what constitutes good health.

Holistic massage is an expression of a holistic philosophy encompassing four modes of sensemaking within which massage therapy is seen as an art form that encourages a descent into deeper somatic awareness, stimulates narrative understanding to access problem solving capabilities in dealing with conflicts in their affective and bodily manifestation, and employs meaning making through languaging to create experiences that enhance health and fulfillment in the communities in which people participate.

Through a series of lectures and audience participation we will explore materials related to massage therapy and healthcare grounded in four ways of sensemaking. In a short period of time participants will be able to engage in activities fostering good health. These lectures will be given for a minimal fee of five dollars and will be held monthly at Harbord Center for critical/education and SouthShores massage therapy on beautiful ricelake. Please call Richard for dates,location and times at 416-535-9305.

Myofascial Release

A specialized form of deep Massage

Myofascial Release helps free the body from chronic and accumulated tension. In addition to relieving local and acute muscular stress, over a series of fifteen massages it promotes long lasting relaxation and balance throughout the entire body structure.

During the course of our life the healthy balance between the demands of the culture we bear and our biological inclinations to prosper invariably swings to the extreme in either of the directions.

The excessive imbalance when allowed to persist produces various distortions of our body. These disembodiments with their accompanying aches and pains represent indicators of the degree of distress we are experiencing. They signal the potential for dis-ease to set in.

Our bodies may become frozen and twisted turning us away from life; collapsed and lose vitality resigning us to a listless life; compressed with thick muscular tensions that block natural mobility inclinations and lead to excessive submission to life with little or no joy; upwardly inflated by over aggrandizement and extension of our social personas to a point where breakdown is just around the corner, and stiff and rigid precluding flexibility and the liberation of genuine sensations that nourish joy of living . These disembodiments foretell progression toward our becoming machinelike and overfilled with responsibilities and a stance all but void of social sustenance. In this situation we are seldom nourished regardless of how much wealth and social status we attain.

These patterns persist over time reinforced by the norms of communities of practice to which we belong. As we cope with the demands of our participation in communities of practice organized around instrumental activities, our organic tendencies toward spontaneity and social gregarious are often inhibited by habituated, instrumental patterns of attending, perceiving, remembering, thinking, feeling, and acting. Usually we are unaware of a subtle, gradual coming about of a physical and mental posture supported by muscular armor. These personal stances with their accompanying muscular distortions significantly influence the ways in which we make sense of our personal and social worlds.

Steady progression toward these postural imbalances can be prevented and reversed. Myofascial Release begins by assessing and increasing a person’s awareness of armored sections of the body. Through a co-assessment of postural body distortions, a mutually agreed upon plan to deal with patterns of distress is constructed. The plan continues to evolve over the course of treatments as knowledge for dealing with mental and physical patterns of tensions is generated. The connective tissue or fascia, composed of thin, elastic, web-like material, which envelops and co-ordinates the muscles is gently stretched through deep breathing accompanied by massage directed toward releasing the tension and emotional pain held in prominent areas of tension revealed in the co-assessment.

The Myofascial Release directed toward deep reorganization of distorted muscular armor permits chronically over contracted muscles to relax and their opposing overstretched muscles to contract. When muscles are restored to a more balanced tone segments of the whole body are now able to better articulate with each other and form a better-integrated posture capable of more effectively bearing the body’s weight. Legs, pelvis, torso, neck, and head shift into a flexible alignment in which the energy flows more equally and freely to a place of balance that enables a person to inhabit the moment, feel alive, and experience the joy of living more robustly. Yet at the same time engage in the valid pursuit of instrumental activities with others in communities of practice making up our social world.

Chronic Pain and Massage Therapy

Few experiences are as distressing as chronic pain. Painful situations sap your energy and take an emotional toll. Over time, pain can become a vicious cycle with a life of its own, sometimes persisting even after the original cause is resolved.

Massage therapy is one of the most overlooked, yet accessible supportive measures you can seek for chronic pain. Dr. Donald Melzack, a pioneer of modern pain research, said of massage therapy” almost all societies use mechanical pressure…to relieve pain…There is not one of us who does not …stretch an aching back or rub an area that hurts. These are our own, almost instinctive, maneuvers which have developed into various anti-pain procedures.”

THE PAIN CYCLE

The pain cycle is a complex chain of events which reinforce each other. The wheel of painful suffering often begins with a traumatic stressful situation in one’s life. These situations can be of a short(acute) or long lived duration (chronic)and involve a persons body symptoms, stressful narratives ,social conflicts, and a person’s ways of languaging these events. These stressful patterns often foster injury, illness, and endless interpersonal conflicts. Massage therapy is unique in addressing these elements of the pain cycle.

ELEMENTS OF THE PAIN CYCLE

PAIN: You perceive pain when your body releases chemicals that stimulate nerves to send pain messages to the brain. These are difficult and dangerous to ignore. Pain immediately causes us to examine “what’s going on” in our lives that’s creating this painful situation. This search opens us to deeper reflections on our life situation.This can involve many levels of examination-physical(symptoms),mental,(narratives) and social realities such as our relationships to work,intimate relations,and meanings of life.
In collaboration with your massage therapist one can explore and treat the cause of your pain. At the same time, through receiving massage treatments one can affect how one experiences chronic, persistent pain. Research suggests that massage stimulates release of natural pain relievers such as endorpins. Massage can also reduce the devastating grip of pain as one learns to relax deeply the chronically held tensions located in three central areas of the body namely the central nervous system,visceral congestion,and skelto-muscular spasms.

MUSCLE TENSION: Muscles automatically contract around any painful site to support and protect the area. If pain persists, the muscles can become habitually contracted. Sometimes muscle contractions press on nerves causing tingling, numbness, and more pain.

REDUCED CIRCULATION: Like a sponge that is squeezed, a contracted muscle can’t hold much fluid. Tight muscles reduce circulation, allowing waste products from inflammation and normal muscle function to accumulate. This can leave you feeling fatigued and sore, reducing your energy reserves. It can also irritate nerves, causing pain to spread throughout the tense area. Massage releases contracted muscles and pushes circulation toward the heart. Also, as massage relaxes the nervous system, blood vessels dilate to increase blood flow. Waste products are flushed away and replaced with healing oxygen and nutrients. As your tissues are cleansed and flooded with nutrients,you may experience relief from emotional symptoms such as anxiety,depression,suffering ,anger outbursts to a renewed sense of optimism which can last for days.

TRIGGER POINTS: Over time, areas with poor circulation form trigger points-highly irritable spots that refer pain, tingling or other sensations elsewhere in the body, usually in a predictable pattern. Trigger points respond well to standard massage techniques such as sustained pressure,ice massage,and muscle stretching.

MUSCLE and FASCIA SHORTENING: Eventually, the body lays down restrictive connective tissue throughout any contracted area.While helpful for healing injuries,this natural reaction can glue muscles and their connective tissue coverings into a shortened state.Massage increases circulation,rehydrating and softening connective tissue that surrounds the tight muscle. This again helps free a person from the pain cycle.

RESTRICTED MOVEMENT: Irritating waste products, painful trigger points, and shortening muscles make even simple actions difficult and tiring. As your capacity for movement and exercise decreases, you lose the most important means for maintaining good circulation throughout your body, risking pain in new areas. Massage helps restore normal movement by releasing trigger points, removing waste products, and stretching shortened muscles. In addition, because you feel better after massage therapy, you may discover renewed energy and motivation for physical activity.

STRESS AND PAIN: Our physical reactions to stress reflect how we evolved in prehistoric times. Muscles tense for action and circulation decreases to areas not needed to fight or flee. To be in a constant state of tension doesn’t help with modern stresses such as family conflicts, work pressures or money worries. When stress is unrelieved, our bodies tense further into an anxious deformed postures. Chronic pain itself is a major source of stress. It drains you emotionally, robbing you of patience and stamina you need just to get through a day. It interrupts your sleep, leaving you tired and irritable. You worry about its cause and if you will ever get better. As pain makes normal activity difficult, your anxiety increases. Stress induced muscle tension and impaired circulation can and do contribute directly to the pain cycle.

MASSAGE THERAPY AND STRESS; Massage acts on the nervous system to counteract the body’s response to stress, relaxing muscle tension and allowing heart rate, blood pressure and circulation to return to normal. Many people sleep better after massage, which helps the body heal and renews emotional reserves.(Life Nourishing).This opens a space that frees one from the grip of the pain cycle (Painful contractions) at first this space may be temporary but with body awareness of habits and massage this healing space slowly expands fostering more time and space freed from chronic pains. This somatic awareness helps you become aware of unconsciously held tension patterns, and how it feels to relax and let-go of habitually held tension responses. This helps one sense the tension patterns, the narratives and social situations that increase it and ways of stepping out of them.

WHAT ELSE CAN BE DONE; always seek medical advice for pain since it can indicate a serious health condition. Always inform Richard about any medical conditions and inform primary health care worker that your receiving massage.

FOSTERS BODILY AWARENESS; Through receiving massage a person soon learns where one holds tension.This awareness can help you recognize early stress warning signs such as stomach ache,shoulder pain,sore feet,headaches,whatever.You can then learn the follwing methods to shift the tension cycle.

LEARNING TO RELAX AND OPEN DEEP BREATHING: Relaxation is a skill that can be learned.Through a receiving a good massage you can experience where you hold,constrict,twist,collapse or rigidify .This will give you instant awareness of when your body goes back to habitual tension patterns.Only this time around you will be able to immediately beaware of the situation that’s creating the stress,your emotional programmed response, ways to reform habitual postures,problem-solving capabilities,and languaging. Through awareness of these four modes of intelligence one can create longer periods of feeling good making it earier to consciously recreate that state in your daily life.

Massage therapy is most effective when it is in the context of a wellness model. In which a person is encouraged to become responsible in creating actions and social climates that foster good health. Such as rest, nutrition, exercise, good breathing, play, laughter, sexuality and awareness of everyday habits that create the bedrock for painful conditions to take hold.