Spring has arrived in Colac Otway, and I hope everyone is enjoying the longer evenings, and more beautiful sunny days.
Here’s a short film clip of my doing some massage, just to give you a snapshot of my work and our clinic.
Massage is such a great way to get your intentions of leading a healthier life back on track. The mind and the body can be seen as two aspects of human life. However they are not separate, but rather, very closely related. In order to have a healthy mind, it is essential to properly take care of the physical body. If we suffer physical pain and tension, it occupies the mind making it difficult to focus on other important things in life. If we can alleviate the pain and tension, our minds become free and open. When we carry pain, we hunch our shoulders and hold the pain causing increased soreness in our bodies. It can be hard to keep a positive spirit!
Let me explain some of the conditions I commonly take care of:
Muscular soreness: Such conditions might be caused by stress, or physical work that may have been too heavy, repetitive, or unusual. It may have occurred from a workout that was a bit more than what you are used to. No worries! In such circumstances I can combine kneading, deep tissue work, cupping, and stretches. I usually begin by warming up the area before commencing kneading. This process helps move the old stagnant blood back toward the heart, allowing the tissues to then be flushed with fresh blood, full of nutrients, and blood cells for tissue repair of the sore area. This is why healthy eating is such an important part of healing physical injury. Our diet provides all those nutrients for regeneration of new tissue. Usually one hour sessions of remedial massage are enough, but feel free to ask for longer sessions of say one and a half, or two hours. The more the better really!
Severe pain: The more severe the condition, the more challenging it can be for the practitioner. But also it is so very satisfying when treatment results in significant benefit to the client. In such cases I also use a heat treatment process called moxibustion along with the remedial massage. I have personally experienced the benefits of moxibustion during my own life, having had numerous injuries as an athlete.
Moxibustion heat treatment is a unique experience. The heat can be pleasantly intense, radiating into the chosen acu points. Its stimulation is much deeper than what can be achieved by even deep tissue massage. And yet at the same time very gentle and can help us treat damaged areas where deep tissue massage might be inappropriate for damaged tissue. Moxibustion is both healing and pain relieving.
Pain is the body’s warning system and alerts us to the location of the injury or tension. Once we are providing therapy to the area, it’s time to reduce the pain levels back to normal sensation. Moxa heat appropriately turns this warning system down.
As mentioned above, I have had plenty of my own life experience of pain. From a broken bone to torn ligaments, as well as the pain of childbirth! I am lucky enough to have my own personal acupuncturist, my clinical (and domestic) partner, Andrew Broomfield. Acupuncture is another physical therapy closely related to massage, and sometimes seems to work like magic.
I have learned over the years that the body has very powerful abilities to engage in self-healing: Processes that massage and acupuncture can stimulate. If you have had Andrew’s gentle Japanese-style acupuncture treatment, you might have not noticed much happening during the treatment itself. It is so subtle that you might wonder what he has actually done. However, the beneficial results occur due to the stimulation that puts the body on a pathway to healing.
Numbness: This lack of feeling, or perhaps altered form of sensation can be worse than pain itself! The network of nerves encompasses every millimetre of our body, and produces many sensations including pain, pleasure, pressure, heat and cold. The absence of such sensations means the loss of our warning systems as well as pleasurable sensations. In short, numbness results in an inability to interact with our environment, and reduces the quality of our life.
I’ve recently had the privilege of working on some conditions that include numbness of the hands and fingers stemming from issues in the arms and wrists. It’s such a difficult issue for people when they have numbness of the finger tips, disabling fine motor skills and the ability to feel things in this way. It’s been great to get very positive feedback about the positive benefits of my treatments for such conditions.
I am so grateful to the many people that put their trust in my skills and allow me to try my best to help people with my therapies. I am very keen to have the opportunity to try and figure out what it is that you need to improve your situation. Please give me chance!
For urgent cases we will do our best to fit you in on the same day. Please call or text on 0434 551 350, or call the clinic on (03) 52311 799.
You can also book online at www.colacotwaychinesemedicine.
Warm regards
Shizu Broomfield.