Interested in becoming a massage therapist? Want to learn the different massage techniques, including reflexology massage? While foot massage may feel a lot like reflexology, the reason for reflexology massage is to promote the healing of the body’s organs. Plus, reflexology takes foot massage to the next level by adding the hands and outer ear lobes. It is a full-body massage technique.
What is Reflexology?
Reflexology is a hand, foot, and ear massage technique used to relieve pain and heal the connected parts of the body. The theory of reflexology is that all body parts are connected, and using pressure points can help manage pain throughout the body and its organs.
The ears, palms, soles, and outer parts are divided into zones. There are 10 vertical zones. These zones correspond to nerves, leading to muscles and organs throughout the body.
Hand Reflexology
Reflexology theorizes that hand parts correspond with the body’s different organs. For example, the tips of the finger correspond with the head and brain. Massage on the fingertips can help release hormones and relieve a client’s headaches. The joints under the fingertips are correlated to the teeth and sinuses. Massaging this hand area can improve a cold or reduce sinus pressure. The meaty part of the middle and pointer fingers is correlated with the eyes, whereas this part of the ring and pinky finger correlates with the solar plexus. Different parts of the palm correlate with the heart, diaphragm, liver, spleen, kidney, stomach, colon, small intestine, thyroid, and pancreas. The wrist corresponds with the appendix, lower back, prostate, or ovaries. During a massage therapy program, you will learn about these reflex points and utilize reflexology charts to target different body organs better.
Feet Reflexology
The feet correspond with organs like the body, such as the hands. Like the hands, the tip of the toes corresponds with the head and brain. Also, the joint under the toe corresponds with the teeth and sinuses, and down the foot corresponds to the arch and heel. Different parts of the foot have reflex points similar to those of the hands. Massaging both reflex points helps to balance the nerve systems throughout the body from head to toe.
Ear Reflexology
The ear also corresponds with organs in the body. As the nervous system is connected from our feet to our head, the ear lobes can be a conduit to relieve stress and promote healing in the corresponding organs of the body. Whether it is the outer part of the ear lobe that connects to the abdomen, chest, kidney, gall bladder, liver, tongue, or tonsils or the inner part of the ear lobe that connects with the sciatic nerve, bladder, pancreas, stomach, spleen, heart, and lungs; pressure on these reflex points can help promote healing and improve body and organ function through reflexology.
How Do You Perform a Reflexology Massage?
A typical reflexology treatment can last up to 60 minutes. Still, it will begin with an assessment, gathering health history, and understanding the chief complaints or goals the client wants to address. Doing an initial evaluation to set a baseline that will help you know where you are starting from is essential. How is the client’s range of motion? Where does the client feel pain? Throughout subsequent appointments, you can follow up with additional assessments and better understand how the massage is helping the client’s body.
During a reflexology massage, you will apply pressure to the feet, hands, and outer ear lobes and stimulate points on the feet, hands, and ears to identify areas of tenderness or tension. Rubbing and massage can help create heat that soothes the muscles and promotes relaxation. In addition to improved mood, reflexology helps improve blood circulation, which has many benefits, like increased oxygen to bodily organs and removing toxins.
The reflexology technique is similar to traditional massage but utilizes your fingers and hands more than the shoulders and upper body. There are three main techniques that you will use when performing reflexology. They include:
Thumb Walks
Thumb walks are like a hand crawl. Fingers or thumbs apply pressure followed by release as they move forward over reflex points in small increments. This technique is used on both hands and feet to reduce stress and help improve organ health.
Circle Technique
You will use your thumb or finger to apply pressure to the client’s soft tissue in a circular motion over the reflex point. This circular motion can help create heat that will relax the muscles.
Pivot-On-Point
You will push a flexed thumb against a reflex point while using the other hand to rotate the foot beneath it. By moving the foot instead of the thumb, you will maintain firm and consistent pressure. The light pressure helps release tension and soothe the muscles.
What are the Benefits of Reflexology?
Reflexology has many of the same benefits as massage, from stress relief, lower blood pressure, and pain relief to improved blood circulation and elimination of body toxins. However, reflexology’s many benefits can also help clients physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Benefit #1: Stress Reduction
One of the main benefits of reflexology is stress relief. Since our bodies are connected from head to foot, and there is a neurological relationship between muscles and organs, reflexology theorizes that the massage of the hands and feet can help organs within the many zones of the body that are connected through the body’s nervous system. Our nervous system will respond to nerve pain when a specific nerve is compromised. By stimulating the reflex points, you can help the body send messages to the brain to release hormones that help reduce stress. Some clients will need multiple sessions to relieve stress completely.
Benefit #2: Lowered Blood Pressure
Due to many of our lifestyle choices, physical activity choices, and diet, many people suffer from high blood pressure, especially as they age. Certain conditions like diabetes and obesity can contribute to a client’s high blood pressure. Reflexology massage can help reduce the risks of heart disease by minimizing high blood pressure and triglycerides. Stress reduction can also help lower blood pressure, a benefit of reflexology.
Benefit #3: Pain Relief
Many of your client’s chief complaints will be muscle pain. It is a common reason people seek out massage, especially reflexology. Reflexology theorizes that pain originates in the brain and that the brain can send signals to the body to reduce pain. When you massage the corresponding reflex point, the brain will signal to the muscle group that it should turn off pain and offer relief to the corresponding part of the body. The brain will also release hormones that can improve the balance of muscle chemistry, thus reducing pain in the body.
Benefit #4: Improved Blood Circulation
Massage can help improve blood circulation in the body, but reflexology, in particular, is good at dilating the blood vessels to increase blood flow. The body reacts by dilating blood vessels by using pressure on reflex points in the feet. Reflexology promotes the movement of blood that can better deliver oxygen to the organs to help their function and increase metabolism. The increased oxygen can help heal the body’s organs and regrow damaged cells in muscles, soft tissue, and essential organs.
Benefit #5: Eliminate Body Toxins
The body can build up muscle toxins during exercise, injury, or even while sedimenting. Reflexology can help reduce those toxins in the muscles by increasing blood circulation. Increased blood circulation can help the client’s body remove toxins that may be excreted from the body’s organs to protect the body from diseases and adverse health conditions.
Benefit #6: Better Sleep
Increased stress and chronic pain can disrupt the normal sleep cycle. For those who either have trouble falling asleep or suffer from insomnia, reflexology massage can help reduce stress while helping the brain become calm. Reflexology helps specifically by increasing hormones in the body that help regulate sleep.
Benefit #7: Increased Energy
Many clients will come to you with sluggishness and a lack of energy to do daily tasks. Reflexology, the repair of organs, can result in a higher metabolism, which in turn boosts the body’s natural energy level. Not only can reflexology help reduce sluggishness, but improving depression and anxiety can also increase the client’s energy.
Final Thoughts
Want to learn the techniques behind the healing power of massage? During a massage therapy program, you will learn traditional massage techniques, alternative techniques, and holistic massages like reflexology. With this vast arsenal of massage techniques, you can create a customized plan for your clients. Is it time to start a new career and help others simultaneously?
Ready to Learn More?
Are you interested in learning more about starting a career in massage therapy? Upon graduation, Massage Therapy Program students will receive diplomas and be qualified to seek entry-level positions as clinical, medical, or deep tissue massage therapists in wellness clinics and centers, spa environments including resorts and franchises, and self-employment.
The massage therapy training diploma program consists of a well-planned sequence of courses, each preparing the college student for the more intensive information to follow. The school curriculum includes training to provide college students with scientific knowledge, manual skills, and business mastery to become a professional massage therapist.
Contact us to learn more about how you can become a massage therapist today.