When people come in for Shiatsu treatment, some of the most common statements I hear are: “I just moved wrong …” ; “for some reason, my body isn't responding”; or “I just don’t seem to be able to get over this”. People often feel fearful, that they may or may not have done some obvious thing just prior to their onset of pain that caused their malady, and that they should be recovering but aren't. My response is that it often isn't just what they were doing at the time of their onset of pain, but that different demands or elements of their life can create an imbalance in their body that culminated at that moment in order to influence the effects of their present injury or problem and keep it from improving.
There are many combined things that contribute to balance. Certainly we all have strengths and weaknesses including a propensity for inherited conditions and diseases, or to have overall health. It's true, we can strain or traumatically injure ourselves, but often it's not clear as to what we did to cause a problem, or to keep it from resolving. There are factors both internal and external that can influence the subtle balance that affects our quality of life and the ability of our many different systems to integrate and maintain strength and health. Without this integration individual systems or the balanced flow of blood, lymph, nerves, hormones and such between them, presents problems to adequately be able to recover from stresses that this world presents.
Internal factors I’m referring to might be things such as: health history (including injury, disability, or infection), postural habits, inherited physical traits, strength and flexibility training necessary for us to accomplish the tasks that we ask our bodies to do, eating the proper nutrition and water to feed and maintain our bodies, getting enough sleep or rest, and last but not least, maintaining healthy mental habits. I will talk at length about each of these influences later. External influences that I’m referring to include: cold, heat, dampness, dryness, wind, and barometric pressure.
Bringing balance to this picture does not just entirely entail going to see someone and have them do their “magic” on you. The Shiatsu practitioner’s job then is that of teacher (the root meaning of the word "doctor") and to give you a push in the right direction (pun intended). To do the part of teacher, I'd like to define the word "stress" as meaning change. A contractor or engineer puts certain materials together in such a way in order to withstand "stress loads" or changes of force. Our bodies differ in that how our mind or our body perceives a given change, to a great degree, also influences the amount of effect that a given stress has upon us. Pressing certain points on the body in a gentle and rhythmical way helps bring the body and all of it's systems back from it's "flight or fight" response... in effect restoring homeostasis.
Two pressure points, among others, that are powerful in helping to sedate and bring balance in a general way to integrate the different systems of the body and mind are: the medulla oblongata point in the hollow just below the back center base of your skull, pressing towards your eyes; and a point located on the top of the head following a line going up from the base of your earlobes through the apex of your ears on either side. This point is called “the meeting of a hundred nerves” and is an excellent treatment point for calming the body and mind. In this case, you would press perpendicular to the skin. In a child, because of the soft spots on their skull, you would just even rest your hand gently on the top of the head in this area. Pressing these points, helps to calm our minds and bodies in order to assist in bringing balance and integration to our autonomic nervous system.
Tom Langenstein is a licensed Shiatsu Therapist since 1978 in Captain Cook, Hawaii. The information enclosed herein is not to be construed as medical advice and should always be considered under the advice and consent of your medical doctor.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Beginnings
Aloha,
After being in full time practice as a licensed Shiatsu therapist for over 30 years, I felt it was time to finally start a blog where I can share some of my history, experiences, views, research and anecdotes to anyone who might be interested. I'm hoping to include any other helpful hints or information regarding other natural therapeutics that can be utilized by the general public in an attempt to promote or maintain health. I also encourage anyone so inclined to ask questions regarding this field and I'll do my best to answer them in a non-technical way that most people can understand. So here goes:
I thought I would start out talking about "energy" since Shiatsu is often referred to as an "energy" therapy and many people from the West have a hard time understanding what that refers to, and even fear it as something occult. The word energy can mean a lot of things, but for this purpose, I like to use the definition most suited to physics. That is: energy represents the ability to do work. It is manifested in many ways, electricity, light, heat, sound, magnetic fields, mechanical, chemical, and other means, but some shared things are always consistent. The basis of energy is neither created nor destroyed, and under the right conditions, it can be converted to other forms of energy, usually with some dispersion of that energy involved in that conversion process.
This concept can be used to explain how we utilize electricity to make light (or vice-versa through photo voltaic cells). We can use chemicals to make electricity, such as in batteries. We can use magnets to create sound as is used in speakers, heat from oil and so on ... . There is nothing occult or magical about this applied science when referring to "vital energy" or the ability to do the body's work for life, Oriental medicine is is just a very practical application of known scientific facts.
The word "Shiatsu" literally means "finger pressure" in the Japanese language. That sounds so simple and when watching a Shiatsu therapist at work, that is what you will see. The reality is, however, that by pressing on the body with the fingers and palms, a person is capable of doing a great deal to influence change in the balance of many dynamics that are constantly occurring in the human body that our level of science is only now just beginning to understand. Pressing specific points on the body can pump the lymphatic system, dilate the vascular system, stimulate or sedate the nervous system, help regulate the hormone system as well as help to balance the musculo-skeletal systems. All of these are examples of "vital energy" being manipulated to aid the body to maintain health.
For a practical example of how this works, the next time someone you know gets a case of the hiccups, have them put a cup of water in their hand and stand behind them. Have them take 10 small quick sips of water while you put firm pressure on the flaps of both of his/her ears so as to close the ear opening but not painfully. If, by chance it doesn't work the first time, do it a second time. I have never seen this fail unless the hiccups were chemically induced or due to pressure on the involved nerve from trauma, infection, or a structure such as a tumor.
Hiccups are a reflex reaction that the body has when there is an imbalance between the muscles that allow the throat to open for air versus the muscles that close the airway while you swallow food. The loss of coordination between these antagonistic muscles can sometimes be caused by eating extremely spicy, or hot food, carbonation, being startled or other ways of stimulating the nerve that manages this coordination. Pressing these points in this way helps to reset the autonomic nervous system so as to balance this mechanism once again.
After being in full time practice as a licensed Shiatsu therapist for over 30 years, I felt it was time to finally start a blog where I can share some of my history, experiences, views, research and anecdotes to anyone who might be interested. I'm hoping to include any other helpful hints or information regarding other natural therapeutics that can be utilized by the general public in an attempt to promote or maintain health. I also encourage anyone so inclined to ask questions regarding this field and I'll do my best to answer them in a non-technical way that most people can understand. So here goes:
I thought I would start out talking about "energy" since Shiatsu is often referred to as an "energy" therapy and many people from the West have a hard time understanding what that refers to, and even fear it as something occult. The word energy can mean a lot of things, but for this purpose, I like to use the definition most suited to physics. That is: energy represents the ability to do work. It is manifested in many ways, electricity, light, heat, sound, magnetic fields, mechanical, chemical, and other means, but some shared things are always consistent. The basis of energy is neither created nor destroyed, and under the right conditions, it can be converted to other forms of energy, usually with some dispersion of that energy involved in that conversion process.
This concept can be used to explain how we utilize electricity to make light (or vice-versa through photo voltaic cells). We can use chemicals to make electricity, such as in batteries. We can use magnets to create sound as is used in speakers, heat from oil and so on ... . There is nothing occult or magical about this applied science when referring to "vital energy" or the ability to do the body's work for life, Oriental medicine is is just a very practical application of known scientific facts.
The word "Shiatsu" literally means "finger pressure" in the Japanese language. That sounds so simple and when watching a Shiatsu therapist at work, that is what you will see. The reality is, however, that by pressing on the body with the fingers and palms, a person is capable of doing a great deal to influence change in the balance of many dynamics that are constantly occurring in the human body that our level of science is only now just beginning to understand. Pressing specific points on the body can pump the lymphatic system, dilate the vascular system, stimulate or sedate the nervous system, help regulate the hormone system as well as help to balance the musculo-skeletal systems. All of these are examples of "vital energy" being manipulated to aid the body to maintain health.
For a practical example of how this works, the next time someone you know gets a case of the hiccups, have them put a cup of water in their hand and stand behind them. Have them take 10 small quick sips of water while you put firm pressure on the flaps of both of his/her ears so as to close the ear opening but not painfully. If, by chance it doesn't work the first time, do it a second time. I have never seen this fail unless the hiccups were chemically induced or due to pressure on the involved nerve from trauma, infection, or a structure such as a tumor.
Hiccups are a reflex reaction that the body has when there is an imbalance between the muscles that allow the throat to open for air versus the muscles that close the airway while you swallow food. The loss of coordination between these antagonistic muscles can sometimes be caused by eating extremely spicy, or hot food, carbonation, being startled or other ways of stimulating the nerve that manages this coordination. Pressing these points in this way helps to reset the autonomic nervous system so as to balance this mechanism once again.
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