Academy of Ancient Reflexology

Reflexology Certification Programs and Workshops

Our Amazing Liver

The largest internal organ in our bodies is the liver. It is our chief chemical factory, producing about 1000 enzymes, and the protector our internal environment.

This large, meaty, multi-purpose organ weighs about three pounds and sits on the right side of the abdomen. It performs close to 600 functions.

The liver is responsible for regulating our entire internal condition by actions on the blood, with its most important duty being that of filtering out impurities and contaminants. As blood carrying the contents processed by the stomach and intestines winds through the liver, it’s purified and returned to the body for removal through the kidneys, bowels and skin.

The liver is the body’s EPA system responsible for neutralizing toxins and poisons. It also stores excess glucose as glycogen, produces proteins and vitamins, controls fat storage, regulates elements of blood clotting, aids digestion, produces hormones, processes drugs, manufactures cholesterol and produces bile, a liquid that looks like motor oil, that acts as a detergent to break down fat for digestion.

An organ with that much responsibility deserves our love and respect!

Reflexology and the Liver

In reflexology, the liver reflex is given a lot of real estate. It occupies the entire area between the diaphragm line and pelvic line on the plantar surface of the right foot, and extends over a little into the first zone of the left foot. It’s an easy area of the foot to work, with the tissue in the arch generally being the softest. Thumb-walking both vertically and horizontally will reveal any adhesions, congestion and or tender spots to stop and give additional attention to.

Think of working the liver when people complain of lethargy and chronic tiredness.

Trivia

Here’s a little trivia for you regarding your liver:

* 1/3 of your blood passes through the liver every minute – twice as much as what is sent to the brain.

* The liver is the only organ where a portion can be removed and it will still function to keep a human healthy. The liver cells will actually re-grow themselves over several months, depending on how much was removed. While most organ donations are harvested from the deceased, it is now possible for family members to donate portions of their liver to a close relative, after which their own will re-grow.

Now that’s pretty amazing! Let’s hear it for our LIVERS!

Blue Light

I watched a program with Katie Couric last night that I had recorded from part of The American Experience series. It was about the influence of technology on our lives now and in the future. Fascinating program if you can find it – it aired a couple of weeks ago.

One point that she did not touch on was the affect that light – all forms of light, both natural and artificial – has on our circadian rhythm (our body’s internal clock). I’d like to share a little info on that today.

When Light Hits Our Eyes

When the photosensitive cells in our eyes detect light, they send this information to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) – a group of nerves in the brain that controls our circadian rhythm. When the SCN detects light, it triggers alertness and delays the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps us to fall sleep.

Maybe that is why we just automatically want to dim our lights in the evening when sitting around relaxing, compared to the bright lights we blare during the day when in the kitchen or at our desks.

Blue Light

It turns out that the cells in our eyes are particularly sensitive to blue light, the shortest and highest frequency of the light waves detectable by the human eye with a wavelength of around 480 nanometers. Studies have indicated that longtime exposure to blue light can cause serious harm to our eyes, such as retinal damage and macular degeneration, greater risk of certain types of cancers, diabetes, heart disease, depression and obesity. And guess what! That is exactly the light wave our smart phones, tablets and computers emit! (Blue light sources also include the sun, fluorescent lights and LED lights.)

Exposure to blue light in the hours before bed has been proven to suppress melatonin levels, making it very difficult to get to sleep.

Never fear! The device manufacturers have found a way to keep us glued to our screens and still get some sleep. Here’s what to do:

Go to the Settings on your smart phone or tablet and look under Display and Brightness. You will see options to filter out the blue light. You can schedule a Night Shift/Blue Light Reduction between certain hours so as to automatically filter out the blue light. Slide the bar that appears for Color Temperature more to the warmer side.

Here’s An Idea

Better still – turn off those devices a couple of hours before sleep! Just read a physical book by lamplight, or mediate, or do some gentle yoga, or give yourself a moisturizing, relaxing reflexology session; anything other than staring at a screen. Give some extra love and attention to the reflexes of the eyes, pituitary and pineal glands, brain and diaphragm muscle.

And, if your eyes are sore from too much time in front of the screen during the day, or time spent outside in the direct sun without protection, lay down on your back with cool herbal-infused eye pads** covering cleaned eyes, while working the eye reflexes on your hands. They are found on the palmer side of both hands in the second and third digits in the most proximal of the three phalanxes. Simple, relaxing way if your eyes feel tired or sore – and a nice way to wind down before bed, too.

** Visit this link and scroll down to the description of Pharmagel Eye Pads. These are the ones that I use personally and with clients in our student clinics.

Migraine Headache or Migraine Syndrome?

For years, that intense one-sided debilitating pain in the head that can strike at any time has been labeled a migraine headache, whether or not other symptoms occurred.

Medicine now classifies the condition as a syndrome (a group of symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular condition or abnormality).

I’ll admit that I am very grateful for the fact that I don’t live with migraine headaches or migraine syndrome. The pain I have witnessed in others’ faces when in the midst of a migraine incident is enough to make me count my lucky stars.

Migraines are classified as a primary headache disorder because they occur independently, in that they result from changes in blood vessels, nerves and muscles, not as a secondary response to disease or injury. A basic migraine headache is described as intense pain at the front or one side of the head. The pain generally throbs and can last as little as an hour and up to many days and nights.

The headache can develop into a syndrome when one or more of the following symptoms occurs. The more symptoms, the more severe.

* sensitivity to light, odors and or sound

* nausea

* vomiting

* blurred vision

* temporary loss of vision

* temporary loss of consciousness

I have, on many occasions provided reflexology to people experiencing the beginning symptoms of a migraine. (Someone in the throws of a syndrome would not be capable of driving anywhere.) What I’ve learned is that everyone’s needs are both the same and different.

Most people will want the room as dark as possible (Pitch black is preferred.); absolutely no scents or odors (They can exacerbate the situation.); no sound or conversation (that means no music).

Pressure is where people can differ. Some people will want the pressure on the feet to be very light and others want it quite deep. This is true also if you are doing massage on the head. No matter what the depth though, the pace needs to be very slow.

Perhaps the most important thing to bring to the session (even more so than a focus on the head and diaphragm reflexes) is an intention to model peace. I try to stay focused on my own relaxed breathing, to calm my own thoughts, to really connect with the energy, and envision my client in perfect health.

What has been your experience either living with migraines or working with people who are suffering?

My Favorite Foot Exercise

It is challenging to walk with ease without strength in the toes. After the ankle joints, the joints of the phalanges are the most important in the foot. The toes propel us forward as we ‘toe off’. Without strength and mobility in the toes, walking comfortably and efficiently is difficult.

Almost all the muscles in the foot are involved with moving the toes, so the exercise I want to share here manages to strengthen and stretch pretty well every muscle in the foot, as well as the toes.

This exercise stretches the muscles and tendons on the dorsal side of the foot and lower leg and strengthens the muscles and tendons of the plantar surface – 14 in total.

The exercise is simple and one of the most important things you can do for the health of your feet (after proper selection of shoes). I hope you will be motivated to incorporate it into your own daily routine and teach your clients. It can be performed while sitting on the couch watching television; no need to set apart any designated time of day to do.

All you do is place some small rubber or silicone balls or marbles (about 2.5 cm) on the floor next to the chair you are sitting on. With bare feet, pick up each of the balls with your toes and move to the side. Repeat with other foot. Aim to pick up about 10 balls with each foot.

The other option is to place a towel on the floor beneath your feet, with a small weight on the far side. Using your toes, pull the weighted end of the towel towards you numerous times.

You will see your toes ‘scrunch up’ as you perform either of those exercises. Work to engage all of the digits. The action of picking up the balls/scrunching the towel is stretching the dorsal tissues and strengthening the plantar tissues, and increasing the mobility, strength and flexibility of the joints in the phalanges and metatarsals.

Simple – so let’s do this!

Distinctions Between Reflexology and Massage

REFLEXOLOGY MASSAGE
 
Objective Relaxation; support system function; help body achieve homeostasis. Relaxation; reduce pain in musculoskeletal system; realign structure.
 
Focus Reflexes. Physiologically based (function). Muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments. Anatomically based (structure).
 
Application To reflexes on feet, hands and outer ears. Only bare hands or feet required. Techniques applied to entire body or areas of complaint. Clothes usually removed.
 
Techniques Small muscle movements of the hands and fingers unique to reflexology, such as thumb-walking, rotating-on-a-point, press & roll. Large muscle movements of hands, forearms, elbows and/or feet to perform specific techniques to work particular areas of soft tissue. Small muscles movements may be used.
 
Benefit To all body systems. To musculoskeletal system.
 

 

Here’s a pdf, if you want to print out. Distinctions Between Reflexology & Massage

What Do You Do For A Living?

When people ask that, what do you say?

Do you say you’re a reflexologist or a massage therapist? Well, don’t.

That response will lead the conversation nowhere, other than on to another topic.

Instead, tell them what you DO for people. How you provide solutions to people’s problems.

There are two ways that you can do that:

Name the population that you work with.

This Hospice radio ad does a great job doing that with, “I help people feel comfortable for the rest of their life.” You know instantly with whom they work.

So, how about this one for you:

“I’m a reflexologist who works with casual and marathon runners who are suffering from chronic foot pain.”

Identify the problem/condition/complaint that your practice is focused on.

“I help people who suffer from headaches reduce the severity and frequency of their pain”

That explanation is bound to grab your listener’s attention.

“Wow, how do you do that?”

And there’s your opportunity to explain how you provide the RESULTS you do. Remember, people are looking for results/BENEFITS. They don’t much care what you do, whether reflexology, cranial sacral therapy or neuromuscular massage. They’re only interested in knowing if you can improve the quality of their lives.

So, tell them!

Feeling Anxious? You’re Not Alone

Are you, or anyone you know, experiencing anxiety? Turns out you are not alone.

A statistically high number of Americans admit feeling afraid or very afraid, according to a study conducted by Chapman University in late 2017. The top fears reported, along with the percentage of Americans feeling afraid or very afraid, are:

* Corruption of government officials (74%)

* Trumpcare (55%)

* Pollution of oceans, rivers & lakes (53%)

* Pollution of drinking water (50%)

* Not having enough money for the future (50%)

* High medical bills (48%)

* That the US will be involved in another world war (48%)

* Global warming & climate change (48%)

* North Korea using weapons (48%)

* Air pollution (45%)

Although I certainly can’t claim to be able to ward off any of the above fears, I am very confident in reflexology’s ability to reduce emotional experiences of stress and the subsequent effects that can occur from prolonged anxiety and stress. I know that from my own experience of 35 years of offering reflexology and from the historical fact that reflexology was first practiced in Russia in the psychiatric hospitals to help people suffering from anxiety.

I keep my movements slow; linger on points; offer lots of stillness. Focus on reflexes to the central nervous system, the vagus nerve to relax the entire digestive system, the endocrine system to support hormone secretions that promote sleep, rest and relaxation, and the diaphragm muscle to encourage slow, deep breathing.

Try it! What have you or your clients got to lose?

Maybe chronic health-destroying fear and anxiety?

 

The Greedy Brain

 

I have two people in my life who recently fell and banged their heads pretty badly. The repercussions have been surprising and most unwelcome, to say the least. That, of course, got me thinking about the brain and our reliance on it to function.

I’d like to share some fascinating things about the human brain, a few ways you can take care of it and what the focus of my reflexology session is when working with folks with functional brain issues.

5 Interesting Facts About Your Brain

1. There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your brain, enough to wrap around the Earth four times!

2. A headache actually occurs in blood vessels around the brain, not inside the brain itself. The brain cannot feel any pain whatsoever since there are no pain receptors within it. That explains how people can be awake during brain surgery and not feel any pain. The ability to give immediate, much-needed feedback to the surgeons is essential; therefore patients must be awake and aware. That’s pretty amazing – and, I have to admit, I would prefer to be unconscious if someone’s got their hands inside my head!

3. Your brain is 60% fat, the nutrient that helps to transport water and protein through membranes to the brain cells. And that is why healthy fats are so important in the diet.

4. The brain is a greedy animal. It nabs about 20% of the energy generated by your body from the food you consume and more than 20% of the oxygen taken in; more than any other organ in the body. Greedy, yes, especially when you take into consideration that the adult brain’s weight – 3 lbs – is only 2% of the full weight of an adult. In fact, your skin weighs twice that of your brain! The brain also snatches 70% of the glucose stored in your body.

5. The brain has 100 billion neurons and one quadrillion connections – more than the Internet, and more than can be accurately counted. For you geeks out there, one quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000.

Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with many people suffering from brain injuries; some from traumatic falls, others from strokes, and others that medicine just calls idiopathic (meaning they don’t know the cause). The improvements are slow and sometimes small, but they are measurable: people regaining their sense of smell or hearing of higher registers; learning to walk and or speak again; reduction in headaches; improved mood and sense of hope, to name a few.

In my work with these people, I constantly remind myself of the need to be patient, encouraging, to work slowly and with intention, and to offer stillness as opposed to ‘doing’. My sessions focus on the general brain reflexes at the tips of the toes, spinal reflexes, cerebral cortex, cerebellum and hypothalamus points.

6 Practices to Protect Your Brain

1. Eat healthy foods.
* Take a high-quality omega-3 fat supplement. (Remember #3 above?) The omega -3 fatty acids EPA and DHA keep the dopamine levels in your brain high, increase neuronal growth in the frontal cortex of your brain, and increase cerebral circulation.
* Protein is the essential item your brain requires, as well as vitamins and minerals from fruits.
* Spend time in the sun to maintain optimal vitamin D levels. Scientists realized the role vitamin D plays in the health of the brain when they discovered specific vitamin D receptors in the central nervous system. Vitamin D improves brain detoxification and is thought to provide protection from autism in infants’ young brains.

2. Exercise. Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity. If you want to change the trajectory of your life and that of your brain, then exercise. Dr. Wendy Suzuki explains how this all works in her short high-energy TED talk.

3. Get adequate sleep: eight hours/night. Sleep is not wasted downtime. Your brain is as active, and at times more active, when you are asleep than when you are awake. If you want to learn all that your busy brain is doing while you’re tucked in bed, check out Dr. Matthew Walker’s book, Why We Sleep. It’s a fascinating read. One of my top non-fiction books from 2017.

4. Turn off electronic devices such as TVs, computers and smartphones. Spend less time in front of these screens, especially a couple of hours before bed. Those blue screens have long-term effects on your brain chemistry.

5. Challenge your brain. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, board games; play an instrument; learn a new language or Tai chi. Make your brain work beyond what it does by rote each day. Studies have shown that it doesn’t even matter if you master the new activity; it’s the challenge of thinking in different ways that does the trick.

6. Avoid artificial sweeteners and additives. These chemicals have been shown to inhibit enzyme function in the brain and lead to neurodegeneration.

Those are just six easy practices that will help support your brain’s health. What other ways do you know to support your brain’s health?

Resources:
ScienceMaster.com 3.12.2014
Mercola.com

Outsmart Your Brain To Form Healthy Habits

We’re fast approaching that time of the year when everyone hauls out their best intentions in the form of New Year’s Resolutions. Weight loss. Regular exercise. Daily meditation. You name it.

The problem is your brain doesn’t want you to change – and for good reasons.

Our brains were designed to conserve energy for really important things like breathing and coordinating movement. Because habits require less energy to perform, our brains rely on habits whenever it is possible. The routines and structures hard-wired through thousands of neurological connections allow us to operate on autopilot from our subconscious mind without much conscious thought or energy.

Think about the time you were learning to drive a car and how much of your attention was required just to navigate the streets without hitting someone or something. And now, you drive, carry on conversations, listen to music, and amuse your brain in many distracting ways while your subconscious mind drives the vehicle.

This means you have to be very smart and very diligent to override what the brain is naturally programmed to do. In order to change a habit, you are going to have to persistently concentrate very hard to weaken and replace those neurological connections that have formed the habits that run your life. You’re going to have to outsmart yourself!

Changing habits is changing the status quo and the brain panics at that. Adrenalin gets released. You become stressed and revert to what I call “rut-behavior” – the familiar and effortless non-thinking choices. Binge-watching. Junk food. Staying up late and sleeping in. Bye-bye resolutions.

But wait! We are more than our habits – much more. Remember that your brain is a tool for you to master and use to your advantage. There are ways to win!

How Habits Are Formed
If we want to rewire our brains, it may help to understand how habits are formed in the first place.

Blame it on our biology.

Anytime we experience something that gives us pleasure our brains produce dopamine, a chemical that basically teaches the brain what we want, and motivates us to get more of it, regardless of whether or not it’s good for us. This is true for any behavior: winning a race, having an orgasm, eating chocolate, receiving bodywork, snorting cocaine. It’s all the same as far as our brains are concerned.

This fundamental system within our brains is crucial for survival. In order for a species to survive, it must want to continually repeat things that are necessary for its survival – like eating and having sex. (That’s why food tastes so good and sex feels great.) Every time you repeat these activities the brain rewards you with that pleasure-producing chemical dopamine that makes you want more. Brilliant!

When dopamine travels to the part of your brain where memories are formed, your brain creates a memory associating the behavior or trigger with getting a reward (dopamine).

I’ll use a personal example. One of my downfalls is potato chips. Although I’ve learned not to bring large bags home from the grocery store, when I go to the gas station, if I walk into the building, I am so tempted to buy a little bag. Thank you, retailers, for conveniently displaying them right at the checkout counter so I see them every time! If I do buy a bag, and then proceed to eat them in the car, I get an immediate rush of dopamine. I feel good.

What happens next has to do with another area that dopamine controls, and that is desire, decision-making and motivation. Next time I just see a photo of a bag of potato chips or just a gas station or am just driving in my car, my brain releases more dopamine from those memory cells that drives me to go get more potato chips. And that etches it deeper into my brain. It’s a never-ending cycle.

That is how habits are formed.

Changing Habits
So, how do we go against our biology? How do we change habits that are not supporting us in the ways we want? Turns out that it’s our brains, once again, that hold the key.

When we reward ourselves immediately after having performed a new behavior, a portion of our frontal lobes associated with self-control, decision-making and behavioral change lights up. Every time we perform this new behavior our frontal lobes light up more and more until the behavior moves to our subconscious mind as a habit. In experiments run at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, it generally took about 50 repetitions to convert a consciously executed new behavior into an unconscious habit.

Habit Formation and Stress
Stress turns out to be our worst enemy when it comes to changing habits. And going against the grain of our comfortable, long-held habits produces discomfort and stress in itself. The hormones released when we are under any stress inhibit the brain activity within our frontal lobes that are cementing these new behaviors into our psyche, so we end up reverting back to behaviors that don’t require conscious decision-making (like eating those potato chips). So successful change depends in part on good stress management strategies.

Strategies to Create New Habits
So, although changing long-held behaviors is difficult, it is not impossible. Here are some strategies I have learned from reading research from those people who have devoted years of their lives to helping us poor souls:

      • IMMEDIATELY REWARD YOURSELF for performing a new good habit. Key here is immediate. Promising yourself a reward if you exercise all week won’t work. It has to be immediate, after every single accomplishment. This is crucial.
      • MANAGE STRESS LEVELS. Exercise and meditation really help with this, but if these are two of the behaviors you have yet to develop as a habit, then remember, there is always reflexology and massage! They always feel great and are dopamine jackpots.
      • SUCCESSFUL CHANGE REQUIRES ABNORMALLY INTENSE, UNINTERRUPTED CONCENTRATION AND REPETITION. That means that when you are performing the new activity you must stay focused on what you are doing to create new neurological connections, not do it mindlessly. And you must keep repeating it day after day, even though you may still be defaulting to your old habit. Remember learning to drive the car? Focus.
      • ELIMINATE ANYTHING THAT SENDS YOU BACK TO YOUR DEFAULT HABIT. Imagine you have one strong eye and one weak one. If you cover the strong one with a patch, the weak one will get stronger. But, as soon as you remove the patch, the strong eye will take over again and the weak one will get weaker. So, put a patch over the unwanted habit; completely eliminate any association that will trigger the old habit. For me, that means avoiding the chip aisle at the grocery store; no potato chips in the house; not going into the gas station building; no eating ‘just one’ at a party. The key is to stay focused on strengthening the developing habit. The more we restructure our lives, including shopping at different stores (gas stations, too), buying new brands of foods, eating on different and smaller dishware, eating in a different room, spending time with new buddies working on developing the same exercise habits – the more we will starve the undesirable habit and feed the activity we want to replace it.
      • SUCK IT UP! So, maybe you commit to your new habit for two consecutive days – Hey, I’m feeling the dopamine! – and then you slip. This is when you must just make yourself do it! All it takes is two, maybe three weeks of performing your new activity for your brain to produce another chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which neuroimmunophysiologist Monika Fleshner calls ‘Miracle-Gro for the brain’. In addition to helping you think more clearly and focus for longer periods of time, BDNF increases dopamine neurotransmissions! That means the more you perform the new activity, the more reward you get, and the sooner that new activity converts to a habit you will soon crave. So, bottom line: just suck it up! No excuses. JUST DO IT!As you move into creating the new you, please remember that you are doing nothing less than rewiring your brain. Be kind to yourself. It’s not easy. Remember when you were learning reflexology or massage? You weren’t smooth, fluid and confident those first days. It took daily focus and practice to perfect the art.

        Creating new habits is no different. Don’t berate yourself for slip-ups. Just start over. Overriding an unhealthy habit requires changing the behaviors associated with it and diligent stress management. Stressing about making these lifestyle changes, or anything else for that matter will knock you off your wagon faster than anything else. Stay calm.

Why You Should Care About Deep Vein Thrombosis

 

There are not many contraindications with reflexology, but a critical one to be aware of is deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

A thrombosis is a blood clot. DVT usually develops in the deep veins of the legs and can be very serious should the clot break loose and travel back to the lungs, blocking blood flow.

You might want to consider adding DVT to your health history intake form, as well as visually and verbally taking note of the following:

Symptoms
* Red or discolored skin on a leg.
* Client reports pain in the leg. The pain often originates in the calf and feels like cramping or just soreness. Run your thumb and palm up the right-hand and left-hand side of each leg gently. If there is pain or discomfort do not go ahead with the treatment.
* Swelling. If you visually notice or feel swelling, check for increased warmth. Do not proceed if positive.

In the above situation, recommend that your client report the symptoms to his or her doctor. You will want a letter of clearance before proceeding. It may be okay to provide foot reflexology to someone with DVT that is controlled by medications.

Some of the risk factors for DVT might be outside our control, but many are not.

Risk Factors
* Inherited blood-clotting disorder
* Prolonged bed rest
* Injury or surgery to the veins
* Pregnancy
* Oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy. They increase your body’s clotting ability.
* Obesity and excess weight
* Smoking
* Cancer. Some forms of cancer and some forms of cancer treatment increase the risk of blood clots.
* Heart failure
* Inflammatory bowel disease
* Family history of DVT
* Age. DVT is more common in people over 60, although it can occur at any age.
* Sitting for long periods of time

To prevent yourself from developing DVT, follow these four simple guidelines:

Prevention
* Avoid sitting for long periods of time.
Push away from the desk!
Get up off the couch!
Take breaks on long auto trips.
When flying, stand or walk if possible; if not, do some simple exercises while seated to contract and relax the calf muscles. Example: Raise and lower your heels while keeping toes on the floor; raise toes with heels on the floor. (Also consider wearing compression stockings if you fly a lot or are on a long-haul flight.)
* Lose weight.
* Quit smoking.
* Exercise.