Massage helps break down the pain cycle. If someone’s coming in and they are agitated or have pain, manipulating the tissue doesn’t necessarily make it heal straight away, but it breaks that pain cycle. The client feels better at the end of the session, whether by warming the area or increasing the circulation, or releasing endorphins and just making them feel relaxed. There’s a reason why, if you bang your knee, for example, your natural reaction is to rub it. It is within us.
“We are wired to respond to emotional touch,” says Francis McGlone, a professor of neuroscience at Liverpool John Moores University. “My analogy is that [touch is] like a vitamin – if we are depleted, there are consequences in terms of our physical health. I make the same argument about the C-tactile afferents – the nerve fiber that evolved in all social mammals to provide the reward associated with close physical contact. When the fiber is stimulated, it does several measurable things – it lowers heart rate, and it lowers cortisol, the stress hormone.” It’s one reason, he says with a laugh, he believes so many people got pets during a lockdown: “That’s the brain recognizing ‘I need to touch something.”
For the pet-less, touch-starved, skin-hungry among us, physical contact is a welcome thing. But, unfortunately, even before the pandemic, we were living through a “crisis of touch.”
Touch is the primary form of bonding, so without contact, even in a subtle way – we’re still talking on the phone, we can still go for walks, but we haven’t touched – there’s something lost. Touch is all about happiness, relaxation, and stress reduction. It is about that feeling of connection to others. Even if it’s a simple handshake, there’s a bond. So when I think about what I lost on a friendship level and a society level, I feel sad about it.
Unconditional touch and holding as a form of therapy
With touch there is very often an antecedent. For some it is simply about being in an unconditional space where someone who cares about them holds their hand while they talk. For others, it may be that they had a childhood of neglect and now want to be held. Sometimes just putting your arms around someone in the foetal position for an hour and just holding them is enough. Slowly all the tension just releases.
Touch breaks down the barriers that everyone has become used to over the years. I don't think it's a coincidence that I always end up making a perfect connection with my clients. Perhaps the enforced distance of the last 18 months has made us realise how important touch is after all.
The touch in the sessions and the connection that comes with it are very important for the clients. It also gives me pleasure and I benefit from oxytocin. I missed that when I was not allowed to work for 3-4 months.
+41798456231 for one-one-one Sessions. xxx Astrid
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