Trying to Stay Sane in Trying Times

Happy April Friends 🌿

The short and easy: come and get a massage!

Book sessions online at: https://wellnessinpractice.setmore.com/benjaminjarrett

Need a reason? Then read on… 🤓

Physical touch is a basic need for maintaining mental and physical well-being; and a handshake or elbow bump here and there just ain’t gonna cut it.

If you get lots of snuggles from your sweetie, your kids or your friends - even your pets - that’s great… But if you find yourself feeling anxious, depressed, moody, or just out of sorts, you’re not alone, and you might very likely be lacking human contact (even if you’re married with kids).

We all need help staying sane in these trying times, and massage is one of the simplest ways to come back to your senses, especially if you’ve lost track of your body in recent days, months or years. I like to think of it as an assisted mindfulness session.

Here’s the thing: our brains need all kinds of sensory feedback in order to continue making sense of the world, and if we starve ourselves of physical stimulation (in the form of exercise/stretching, and conscious awareness of our surroundings tactically, visually, acoustically, and olfactory), then our brains have less data with which to form a world which makes sense, and we start to feel all sorts of yuck.

Not to get in the weeds here, but if you’re feeling depressed, anxious, or are looping in general, chances are you are literally stuck in your head and you need to ground yourself with pure physical sensation. Exercise is one way of providing that feedback; mindfulness meditation is another; somatic practices like yoga or Feldenkrais are yet other avenues; but there’s nothing quite like receiving compassionate touch from another human being. I’m talking about Massage 😊 and the avenue is through the skin.

Our skin - and this might seem obvious when you read these words but it’s amazing how easy it Is to forget - is the thing that literally comes into contact with our world. You can see things, smell things, and hear things, but when you touch something, you are experiencing the most direct form of contact with that thing.

Massage is not a workout. There’s no stress involved. No problem solving to be done. Nothing about you needs to change. Only thing that’s important is that you are giving yourself the gift of focused time, to feel pleasure for pleasure’s sake, giving yourself an experience of safety.

What happens then is nothing short of miraculous: your nervous system gradually calms down and shifts into it’s so-called “rest and digest” mode (aka: a parasympathetic mode). It’s within this aspect of our autonomic nervous system that our own body can heal itself. This is what self-healing is about.

If this peaks your interest, do contact me for more information or visit my website at https://www.wellness-in-practice.com/

It will be my pleasure to help you in any way that I possibly can.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Jarrett