BODYWORK IS LIKE CHEWING ON A STICK
To relax, the brain needs to know it has backup—someone it trusts to offer help should the need arise—and physical contact through touch therapy is the simplest, most powerful way of communicating those feelings of support.
Nothing is more psychologically concrete than human touch and our hands are the perfect, unambiguous tool for expressing emotional reassurance. Because the human hand is densely embedded with refined sensory receptors that receive and process proprioceptive information about the things we touch, they are our body’s way of exploring and manipulating the world, and also our primary language of expression and compassion.
One recent study published in Scientific Reports suggest that slow, affective touch may help modulate the perception of physical pain thus strengthening social bonding while reducing the stress response.
So, the burning questions for manual therapists is how do we identify those chronically stressed clients entering our offices—how do we converse with them to make them feel safe—and what types of hands on techniques might prove helpful in reducing their allostatic load and calming their hijacked nervous systems? Click here to read more and view a technique video: https://mailchi.mp/freedomfrompain/bodywork-is-like-chewing-on-a-stick-159934