Sensory determination and reflexology

As a part of survival the body must make a sensory determination on whether a demand placed on the surface of the body is benign or a threat. It has a split second to do this. It must first determine where the demand is and then how grave the danger. It does this by activating the sensors in that area of the body. This requires blood and nerve supply to fuel this inquiry and hormonal supply to react to the need for inflammatory responses if indeed something serious is going on.

The simple act of applying pressure to the surface of the body requires this reaction. Increased communication with this part of the body can have a healing effect as blood supply and nerve stimulation help to normalize the conditions that exist.

This reflexive response can be used to reset the stress mechanism.I look at the foot for example as a stress pattern. It can form over a day but also it can accumulate over a lifetime.

The simple act of rolling your foot on the foot roller or golfball can break up those patterns of stress and reset the tone of not only the foot but the entire body. It is a way to quite quickly and effectively put the brakes on not only the stress in your feet but also the stress in the rest of the body.

One thing to remember is that the feet's communication helps set the tension level for the whole body. If the signal is lost the result is simple. We fall down. It is all or nothing situation. The acts of standing and walking require a continuous stream of information to be successful. Any interruption can be castatrophic

Harnessing this sensory reflexive response is a way of focusing on the areas of the body that need our attention It is simple and it puts you in control making you your own body manager.

The New Reflexology: A Theoretical Summary Part 2

We wrote this orginally after our Paralysis Project in 1980. The percepts have really remained the same which is remarkable considering this was written 30 years ago. Editor
******************************************************************************


The Foot as an Educable Structure

During childhood, the foot along with the rest of the body, receives an education, an exploration of the body's potential and its interaction with internal world. Swinging on playground equipment, jumping rope, and other forms of what is considered “play” are actually educational processes for the body. 


The body's education does not end in childhood, however. Because of the life-long need to adapt to the constantly changing environment, the body requires life-long continuing education in the form of sensory information and the demand placed upon the body to deal with this sensory information. Bending over to tie a shoe, for example, becomes a difficult task if one seldom practices it.


Adulthood and civilization join to create a lessened sensory demand on the feet and the body as a whole. Civilization has given us shoes to walk in and smooth surfaces to walk on. The foot no longer has practice at traversing rough terrain. Adulthood encourages routine, a kind of “sameness” of sensory experience. The routine of, for example, going to work and working at the same time, in the same place, at the same job, creates a sameness of sensory information. There is a way out of the rut, however. Continuing education in the form of sensory demands made on the body can serve as a supplement to everyday sensory “sameness.”


**********************************************************************************


Barbara and Kevin 

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

http://www.dk.com/reflexology 

Tweet me @twitter.com/footreflexology

Facebook www.facebook.com/kevin.kunz

Bumpy Brain Boosters Part 2

© 2007 Photographer Gaetan Lee used under a Creative Commons License

I did a post awhile back that was called Bumpy Brain Boosters. the inspiration came from A Google translation that Barbara came up with from Chinese. The idea was that both the Chinese and Japanese felt that stimulation of the bottom of the feet was crucial to children's neurological development. It just came out comically with translated.

I also have been reading a book, The Body Has a Mind of It's Own. This book talks about the importance of the stimulation of the bottom of the feet for body imaging, a crucial part of our well being.

So can't we simply make the jump to the fact that the feet and the hands are really part of the brain. Dr. Miller talks about the importance of the sensory organs like the extremities to the brain in the Body in Question.

How do you separate out the brain from our sensory organs? Is a brain without sensory organs really have any real existence outside the fictional Donovan's Brain?

Is this similar to the fiction that there is 5 senses? Are we limiting ourselves to new insights by looks at the brain as a separate organ and not intimately linked to those parts of the body that reach out and feel the world?

Think about it but not just with your brain.

Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com
http://www.dk.com/reflexology