Challenges of Being a Reflexologist and the Difficulties in Reflexology Research

hello and welcome Adam Thomas from balancing touch reflexology so good to see you and thanks for joining me today today I want to talk about being a reflexologist and um sometimes it can be really challenging considering you know we get might get some other people saying you know reflexology isn't scientific you know there's no research to this um you know what you're doing isn't real um things like that right so today I want to just make a video about um the challeng all is in doing research for reflexology and getting it to be a scientifically proven um you know modality or or method right so let's go take a look at [Music] this so those of you who are reflexologists and stuff we know and see on a daily basis especially if we're working with clients um changes that we see in uh people when they first come through our door to when they leave there's definitely a change at least that's what I see even when I go for myself even if it's not reflexology if I go to get a massage if I go to get you know acupuncture or anything else like that in this whole um topic of you know sort of manual therapies um there's a definite change you come in and you're stressed and your shoulders are up here and stuff and you leave hopefully anyway feeling relaxed and you know your shoulders get some more distance away from your ears and things like that right so we do see this change and I think that's what you know for at least for myself that's what keeps me going because I can see a definite change you know the face looks a lot lighter it glows a bit it looks just looks lighter looks happier looks um warmer sort of feeling right you can see layers of stress being released after a flexology session right and so we know it works right we don't really need any scientific backing and stuff but there are a lot of challenges if we do and want to prove you know reflexology is scientific right there's a lot of challenges that we face so the first point that's really challenging with research and reflexology is creating a placebo right so if we're to check out different vitamins or Med medicine like that right you give the real medicine to a group of people and then you give a placebo a sugar pill or something like that which is nothing right but they they take something they think they're getting uh the medicine and then the you know research follows the results of that right but it's really challenging in reflexology because it's a manual therapy how do we give a placebo um you know we can have to the extent of somebody who's a reflexologist they know all the points and stuff and then they can have somebody who doesn't know anything and they can do that so there is a tiny bit of a placebo effect that can happen but at the same time it's not as clear as um you know the the vitamin or the pill the placebo effect sugar pill type thing right so that's a major challenge um in of itself is to create some kind of of placebo [Music] control another challenge that reflexology has in being researched is the huge scope and variety of techniques out there right so if you go to different parts of the world they have completely different um techniques and there isn't a standardization of techniques right the points are relatively standardized and things like that but how we actually work the points and Our intention on working it and all that can be completely different so having um that broad range it's really hard to research the effects of certain techniques that have on you know the end result right so that is in in of itself a big challenge right um you know you have people who give really light pressure you have people you know in China and Taiwan and things like that where they're using tools and they they want to pay fuel they want the client to jump out of the chair and you know you have other parts of the world where it's more of an energetic sort of um feeling stuff so um all these techniques um create uh a very difficult way to you know research and come up with the [Music] study third idea is the actual client's individual responses right so you have such a wide variety of you know pain tolerances of different people right like as we know as reflexologist we know that some people like um you know a way deeper pressure some people are very sensitive um some of the reflexes that you're hitting some of the points on the foot can be really sensitive and things like that so there's such with the person that you're working on all the people that you're going to be working with there isn't a single like um technique right we talked about technique but there that's going to um be consistent with how they feel right and there can be a lot of psychological issues like they could think oh yeah reflexology is awesome it works it's great it's all that sort of thing um or they're like oh I hate my feet being touched and so there's so many like variations to um studying reflexology effect by the person that you're working on their response right so they might just not like the practitioner that they're getting worked on and so that totally changes their outcome on you know the results of the study that you're doing right or their feet might be too sensitive and the practitioner might be too hard right so there's all these variables just when you're working with different people so the individual response and their perception on their belief and and their feeling about the reflex ology sess session is going to create a different outcome so it's really um a lot to you know absorb there so that's also another issue that we have as reflexologists when we're trying to do [Music] research The Limited lack of funding that reflexology would receive right or does receive for research right is pretty low as far as in the medical system system of um things to get studied and things like that so there's not a lot of um funding which means there can't be a lot of high quality um research put into this so you know there has been a whole bunch of studies done on reflexology but they kind of tend to be a bit more on the like lower budget um person to person or you know each reflexology reflexologist um doing their own kind of studies and sharing their findings with other reflexologists and and things like that right so funding is a major one because we we don't have you know access to uh really expensive um you know scanning equipment and and things like that right so funding um is a big hurdle for um reflexology [Music] research so another another challenge is defining the outcome measure right so a lot of studies um they'll attempt to do more subjective um interpretation so like relaxation and stress reduction right that will be their focus where some objective um studies will have to do with actually seeing physiological changes in the body right so again determining what you know what it is that um the outcome the measurable outcome that we're looking for in a reflexology research is quite a challenge it can go again in so many different directions right so that's another factor of why it's so hard to research [Music] reflexology so another Factor would be the integration or the challenges with integrating into conventional medicine right so reflexology tends to be um a compliment complimentary or alternative therapy and so we kind of lie on the outskirts of um uh conventional medicine right so being able to do a full study with people who do research um medical professionals um things like that right is going to be really essential to build a comprehensive um research uh in reflexology right um you know having the same terminology and you know speaking the same lingo things like that is um also a big uh challenge for uh a lot of reflexologists right so that again is another challenge that reflexology research [Music] has so yet another challenge that we have and this is probably the last point that I have uh for this is basically publication bias yes and right now probably this video that I'm making is a bit of that because we tend to um only want to publish any positive results that we get right and a lot of the uh negative um doesn't get published and so there can be a bit of it you know onesided sort of uh of the story right so again um this is another challenge to actually um coming up with the scientific evidence of reflexology right the research of reflexology so there you go there is seven points there on um all the challenges it is and why it's so difficult to um study something like reflexology right it's it's very hard um we the same um kind of issues happen in any type of manual therapy right um massage therapy all the way to you know acupuncture and things like that still um are trying to gain you know Traction in conventional medicine right and so um but there's a lot more in those other ones I mentioned there's more funding and there's more sort of backing towards that right so reflexology is quite popular now and it's all over and it wouldn't be if if it didn't work right so even though there's all these challenges I see somebody coming in my door and they leave um feeling refreshed is enough for me it's enough evidence that I need to keep going as a reflexologist right so um just know I wanted to make this video to kind of just show you how um Broad and I never really thought about this either but that's why I wanted to make this video is I did a little bit of research on you know how it is that they they study um something and all these factors are really stacked up um in a lot of ways against reflexology or there's so many challenges to make a viable comprehensive uh Research into reflexology right and the cool thing about it is because reflexology is you know so popular there's lots of um people out there including myself and and you yourself um doing individual and writing and and doing our own research about reflexology and then we pass that on to other reflexologists and that's sort of what you know this channel is about is sharing sort of my findings in my practice with you right so um hopefully this doesn't get you down about you know like oh all the all this stuff is you know so hard to overcome but it's good it's a good challenge to um and it's also really good to just uh at least for myself to not just go oh yeah it works and then you know ignore everything else um but it's good to look at both sides of the coin and see how we can keep improving our technique improving the way that we do reflexology right so anyway blah blah blah long long video about me talking but um yeah so anyway hopefully that was helpful if there's any information that I have um for sure I've left out but uh you you know add to the conversation and there are a lot of good reflexology research projects going on right now um one in particular that I've uh want to kind of direct you towards is uh is uh Barbara and Kevin Coons they do amazing research on reflexology so if you don't know who they are um I'll put a link in the description below so you can go check them out and they just do do amazing work on uh research and the study of reflexology so go please go check them out and if you can help in any way they do have uh some funding um you know requirements because they do some pretty crazy uh uh research so anyway there you go that's all I have for today so thanks for watching and I will see you in the next video bye-bye if you're interested in learning more about reflexology you can subscribe to the channel below it's also very helpful to hit that like button and feel free to share it with anybody who you think might be interested in it you can find my online courses reflexology charts and other reflexology goodies over on my website which is balancing touch.com other videos till next time this is Adam Thomas from balancing touch.com