Ann Hauer: Professional Massage & Bodywork Therapy

What is Reflexology?

Reflexology is a unique method of using the thumb and fingers to stimulate more than seven thousand two hundred nerve endings in each foot. These nerve endings correspond to all parts of the body, including organs and glands. Some reflexologists work with the hands and the ears. Stimulating the appropriate region is intended to eliminate energy blockages thought to produce pain or disease in the related areas. Reflexology is used to prevent, rather than cure, and is used to relieve a wide variety of ailments.

What does it do:

Reflexology can relieve stress and tension within the body. It improves circulation and lymphatic flow and works to unblock nerve impulse pathways. These benefits all work toward helping the body to heal itself by restoring balance to the vital energies.

Reflexology works to discover how the soft tissue organs and the entire skeletal system are functioning. Through trained fingers, the Reflexologist can detect early warning signs that the body is struggling and can then help restore the internal system to better balance.

How Often should treatments be scheduled:

Once a week is normal however you can push it out to a bi-weekly basis, but you may loose the results you are looking for; an extreme case would be twice a week. The body needs time to normalize between treatments. Reflexology also works wonderfully in conjunction with other body therapies. Again, you should wait about a week between therapies to avoid overloading the body.

                                                      

1. Stress Reduction - 90%of all illness is stress-related according  to the Center for    Disease Control (and your doctor if you check in with him.)
2. Pain Reduction (especially if done on a regular basis - and I strive to keep my pricing affordable, plus I offer discount package pricing).
3. Increase Circulation.
4. Toxin Elimination.
5. Stimulate & Maintain your Immune System (especially if you have a weakened one).
6. Maintain wellness of your body.
7. Balance to body's systems.

I work on my toddler as it has helped him with teething, sinuses, upper respiratory infections, ear infections and just plain relaxation.  When he gets excessively cranky, I know it is time for me to work his feet, but he will surprise me by asking for it because it makes him feel so much better!   Even toddlers need to wind down.

A Look at Massage:

Massage is considered to be among the oldest of all treatments used by man. Chinese records dating back three thousand years documented its use. The ancient Hindus, Persians, and Egyptians used forms of massage for some ailments, and Hippocrates wrote papers recommending the use of rubbing and friction for joint and circulatory problems. 

Today, massage is an accepted part of many physical rehabilitation programs and has proven beneficial to many chronic conditions such as low-back pain, arthritis, and bursitis. Massage helps relieve the stress and tension of everyday living. The most common form of massage: Swedish mainly relaxes the muscles and eases aches and pains.However, Therapeutic techniques and Aromatherapy allow for deeper penetration to allow muscles to release. These are the main types of massage I prefer to use in my practice as I personally feel that Deep Tissue can sometimes cause harm if not done properly by causing undue inflammation on the tissue.

The benefits of Massage Therapy are: 
(These also apply to Reflexology)

• Arthritis sufferers note fewer aches and pains with improved function in joints.

• Headache/ Migraine sufferers noticed reduced pain and frequency.

• Burn injury patients report reduced pain and anxiety.

• Asthmatic children show better pulmonary function.

• High Blood Pressure patients show lower diastolic blood pressure and stress hormones.

• Premenstrual Syndrome sufferers have noticeably less cramping and water gain on and it only improves on a monthly basis with frequent sessions.

• Less stress and improved work performance for employees receiving on-site massage.

• Reduces mother's risk of premature delivery, post-partum depression and improves parent-baby bonding.  It also improves the symptoms of "morning sickness" throughout pregnancy.

• In numerous studies conducted on massage for infants at the University of Miami's Touch Research Institute (TRI), researchers have found improved weight gain and development in preterm infants, improved weight gain, and decreased stress behavior in HIV-exposed infants. Full-term infants who receive massage also benefit with increased alertness and social behavior, less crying, and increased weight gain.

With more than one hundred research studies completed, TRI has also found massage to have positive effects on children with asthma (improved pulmonary function and less stress), arthritis (decreased pain), burn injuries (reduced pain and anxiety during wound dressings), cerebral palsy (decreased spasms), Down syndrome (improved muscle tone), and leukemia (white blood cells increased), to name just a few.

All this translates into the following:

All of this can usually be experienced after one session, naturally. It takes weeks of medication or supplement use to feel results and yet you still have the side effects to consider. 

With many chronic ailments, massage can relieve the pain and help heal. As with physical problems, emotional problems may also be stimulated into self-healing with massage. In many cases, this helps eliminate the need to take harmful chemical drugs, which will unnecessarily burden the liver, kidneys, and other vital organs.

                             

*photo's courtesy of ABMP