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The sense of touch
One of the basic senses we are born with is touch. Through touch we can feel for example the love of our parents, we can meet new people by shaking hands, we can show if we like or dislike someone by caress or by pushing them away.
The culture of our country or our family can influence how much we will like or dislike to be touched by other people. If we have healthy relationships with our family and friends then touch can be something we consider normal and enjoyable. Many of us have had at least one experience where we have rubbed someone’s back or we have asked for a back massage when we were feeling tired or stressed. Even though this wasn’t a professional massage, it probably helped.
Personally, I don’t remember ever receiving a massage when I was a kid, but I do remember being “exploited” by my oldest brother to massage his back and I enjoyed it as it allowed me to show him that I cared. .
Why massage?
Probably because the touch is one of our most important senses, massage (any kind of stroke, touch with pressure, muscle rubbing) became one of the oldest forms of physical treatment which can elevate soft tissue pain. In the same way a mothers kiss on a child’s bruise is the most powerful treatment!
Many ancient cultures (Greek, Chinese, Hindu, Turkish) positioned massage like an efficient tool to elevate pain, to improve restricted movement and even to change the state of mind.
Depending on the applied pressure, massage can stimulate or calm the nervous, cardiovascular and muscular systems, so all of the body can benefit from it. With just a thumb/fist/palm/arm manipulation it is possible to work on all systems without using any chemical substances. The most important aspect is that the practitioner should know what he/she is doing.
I started to practice massage probably because I like to give and I am passionate about healing health issues in a holistic and natural way. After seeing the changes a massage can make to someone’s life, it strengthened my belief that massage is a very powerful tool to help people.
The mechanism behind the touch
Throughout our life we are ‘encapsulated’ in our human body so we have at least 5 senses which help us to perceive the surrounding world. If eyes, nose, tongue and ears are small organs of perception, the muscles, skeleton and internal organs are bigger parts of the body which interact a lot by the sense of touch.
As you probably know, all information is collected by the brain through the nervous system which is surrounded by bones, muscles, skin and according to the external or internal factors, the brain will contract/stimulate or will relax the muscular, circulatory and hormonal systems.
If our body could just function like a machine switching on and off or like animals do, then we could react and relax easier and we could recover easier. Unfortunately, our life is very demanding physically and emotionally and that makes our body systems hyper active which brings stiffness and pain. At this point a massage can come to help, with the right pressure applied, it can stretch the muscles and fascia, it can improve circulation, it can relax hyper excited nerve endings, it can balance hormonal levels and it can even help to change the emotional state.
Done with care, massage can be a magic touch which can help to improve our lives, it can make us feel better, healthier and more relaxed.
Use your sense of touch to give and to receive and our surrounding world will feel like a better place to live![:]