Life & Style | Health
Trouble's a-foot
Reflexology may sound like a load of old cobblers but one woman truly believes that the medicinal and spiritual benefits of a foot rub can help free modern man of all his trappings.
- By Ashley Mark Hammond, Features Writer
- Published: 15:15 March 31, 2009
- Reflexology can help ease tight shoulders, panic attacks, stiff joints and a headache, among other things.
- Image Credit: Supplied photo
You're trying to tell me every organ of my body correlates to a certain part of my foot? Rub your soles in the place, which relates to an ailing body part, and hey presto, problem's solved?
Do me a favour! Reflexology may sound like a load of old cobblers but one woman truly believes that the medicinal and spiritual benefits of a foot rub can help free modern man of all his trappings. Ashley Mark Hammond met Chris Stormer-Fryer to get a quick step-by-step guide on how.
Tight shoulders
Get the recipient in a comfortable position lying down and embrace all the toes in one light grip. From here rotate both ways. This action will loosen up any tension in the neck or shoulders while allowing energy to flow back into the trouble spots, aiding movement.
Panic attacks
Place your thumbs on the solar plexus reflex, which is the slight hollow in your sole, just beneath the balls of the feet. Apply slight pressure and hold for as long as required. This is excellent for extreme stress, intense anxiety or panic. It may also help with asthma attacks or hyperventilation.
Stiff joints
Place palms flat against the recipient's soles and push up towards their body. Then push from the tops of the feet down. Press your hands across your feet, fingers curled over the inside arches and gently twist feet so soles face one another, move the other way and finish off by rotating.
Headache
Get the recipient to lie flat on their back, embrace the big toe and gently pull. It supposedly relieves spinal reflexes and eases any head, back or neck complaints. By straightening the whole body this toe-pulling technique eases overall tension and releases trapped or pinched nerves.
Backache
Gently caress the bony ridge along the inside edge of your foot. This is the spinal reflex. From the tip of your big toe to the base of your inside ankle bone, drag the heel of your hand back and forth lightly on the return but slightly harder on the forward stroke each time.
Lethargy
Rubbing the soles of one's feet, especially first thing in the morning with a sponge or any foot scrubber, as vigorously as you can possibly endure, will wake up the body and revitalise a tired mind. This is a great way to refresh for a day's work, getting you off on the right foot.
It's spiritually uplifting too...
Dubbed the 'Universal Foot Lady', Chris Stormer-Fryer is just as good at reading you through lines in your feet, as she is at locating and easing your ailments through your soles.
As I sit awkwardly, notepad and pen in hand, Chris goes about reading lines in my feet like a palm reader. The former midwife and nurse starts her diagnosis of potential health defects through blisters on my feet.
If, for example, areas of hardened skin show up on the part of your sole which relates to say, the kidneys or liver, it means you have friction there in the form of disease or congestion. (Or it could just mean, like me, you've run 21km the day before in the Ras Al Khaimah half marathon).
That, and easing backache through a foot rub was far fetched enough I thought, but then Chris tells me about the letters etched on my soles.
"What does the letter M mean to you?" From money, motors and Megan Fox I came to the conservative answer that was, "Mum." Apparently the pain of our fore-fathers or mothers lives through our feet and we must walk these issues out so we don't hand them down.
It will take a lot of walking to get M off my feet it seems. The letter N pointed to strains in relations with my sister, who moved to New Zealand. I should write a letter to her and burn it releasing my anguish to the sky - Facebooking her to ask where she buried my Action Man is also an option.
Two more lines highlighted relationships I should forget. Hard when, between them, the girls possess my entire CD collection. Oh yeah I'm also "a two-faced softy", a sort of cuddly schizophrenic if you will. I went in sceptical, but you should take things with a pinch of salt.
Don't rely, but supplement, medical advice with that of your GP, and maybe this alternative therapy is alright after all. If you walk out uplifted and less tense amid these troubling economic times,who's to say it's all just mumbo jumbo?
If you would like a foot reflexology consulatation - contact Joanna Macdonald of Keen Heal, the Keen Fit Centre for Holistic Health, located in Jumeirah One, off Al Wasl Road. Email: info@keenheal.com call 050-5597137 or visit www.keenfit-me.com to find out more.
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