Benefits of Having Regular Reflexology

I'm not ill, so why should I have regular treatment?!

This is usually the third question I get when meeting new people, the first being “what’s reflexology?” and second “does it really work?”. The third is then either, “I have this problem can you help?”, (often the answer is yes, and if not then I usually know someone who can!) or, “there’s nothing wrong with me so it can’t really help me can it?”.

Actually yes it can and here’s why:

To start, I think it is down to our perspective on health in the West that this question is raised in the first place. In our conventional western medicine, we are accustomed to thinking about giving treatment only to address a condition or illness, and if there is no diagnosable disease then it is considered unnecessary to give treatment. This is all well and good when thinking about drugs and surgery – we don’t want those unnecessarily!

Are you as healthy as you think?!

However, complementary therapies have a slightly different approach. As therapists we are trained to look for wellness rather than disease.

Just because you don’t have colitis or IBS for example, doesn’t mean that your digestion is functioning perfectly and it may be making you feel sluggish, tired, uncomfortable or maybe cause headaches or skin problems.

A blood test may show your hormone levels fall within a ‘normal’ range but that doesn’t mean they are at optimum levels for your wellbeing. In my experience this is common for women who feel their cycle is not quite right or who are having some fertility issues but all the tests show ‘nothing is wrong’.

You may not have an injury as such, but often poor posture and stress lead to chronic tension, restricted mobility and discomfort, typically in the neck, shoulders and lower back. Left untreated, these can well develop into more serious issues such as frozen shoulder or slipped discs, that do require medication and sometimes surgery.

It’s amazing what you can learn to live with when it creeps up slowly, it becomes normal and so we don’t always recognise when we are not as well as we could be. So, as a reflexologist, I look as giving treatment to bring your body systems into balance so they function better for you.

Prevention is better than cure!

To go back to the title question – if we were to ask instead, “I’m quite fit, why should I keep going to the gym?, we could easily answer that if you want to maintain your fitness, you need to keep exercising. It’s the same with your health, even if you are in good health then you need to have things in place to maintain it.

So things like a sensible diet, regular exercise, getting enough sleep and reducing stress are all important factors. In addition, a regular treatment such as reflexology is a very useful way to give yourself a mini-MOT or tune-up to keep all your body systems in good working order. I would suggest a treatment once a month as a maintenance level. Your therapist can give you feedback on areas that might need a bit of attention so you can prevent something minor developing into a bigger issue.

Reflexology also helps to relieve stress and promotes deep relaxation, both of which improve your immune system. Not only does this act like a pressure valve, to prevent stress building up, the more regularly you experience deep relaxation, the easier it becomes for you to enter this state by yourself.

Providing long term support

Finally, it does take time to make long lasting changes to your lifestyle to maintain good health. We have all experienced the resolve to overhaul our lives and started with great intentions, only to find a few weeks down the line we have slipped into bad habits!

As your therapist I will not only give you some achievable and practical lifestyle recommendations to improve your wellbeing, I will support you in making these changes and provide some accountability to help you stick to them. You’d be amazed what a few small incremental changes over a year can achieve!

10 Session Treatment Package

So why not make a wellbeing gift to yourself of a 10 session reflexology package? This will last you for 6 months, giving you a full hour session every 2-3 weeks and ongoing advice and support between sessions to keep you in good form.

It’s less expensive and more effective than having ad hoc sessions yet remains flexible to suit your diary. Most importantly, making that commitment to a 6 month package will mean that you will be more likely to set new habits and keep your good intention to look after yourself better.

That’s one goal you can tick off your list!

Details and prices for all my packages are available here.