Health Tips from Eugene Wood Massage Therapist

I often remind my patients to breathe. Whether you're suffering from an acute injury, chronic pain or stress, breathing is one of the best ways to alleviate your pain and quell your anxiety. The oxygen we take in on every breath has amazing healing power. The deeper and slower we breathe, the more oxygen we take in. This not only increases blood flow to an injured or painful area, but it calms down the "alarm bells" going off during a painful or stressful situation. You may notice that before I start a massage for pain , I will ask you to take some deep breaths and relax. Breathing from the belly optimizes the overall massage experience. It increases oxygen to the brain, aids the body's natural healing process and stimulates the lymphatic system, which you can read more about here. It also reduces anxiety, which studies show can decrease pain from a level of 7/10 to 3/10. But you don't have to be on the massage table receiving treatment from a massage thera

Reflexology is a natural therapy that applies finger pressure to the various reflex points of the feet. Its ideology dates back 5,000 years to ancient civilizations in Egypt and China, where it was believed that reflex points in the feet are interconnected to the different organs and glands of our system. While Acupuncture works with the qi energy lines, Reflexology is based off the concept of the zone therapy. There is no special skill needed to understand zone therapy. These zone areas are like energy pathways in the feet. Each part corresponds to the five longitudinal zones of the right side and left side of the body with equal proportions. Think of it this way: the big toe down to the tip of the feet is zone 1, the index toe and down is zone 2, the middle toe and down is zone 3, and so on and so forth up to the 5th toe for the 5th zone. Therefore, the left big toe corresponds to the left brain, and the left index toe corresponds to the left eye and organs within zone 2. Pu